TGIM. My Day of Rest Edition.

Counting Sheep


by Linda Pastan

Counting sheep, the scientists suggested, may simply be too boring to


do for very long, while images of a soothing shoreline ... are engrossing


enough to concentrate on.


—The New York Times





When I reach

a thousand

I start to notice

how the eyes

of one ewe are wide,

as if with worry

about her lamb

or how cold

the flock will be

after the shearing.

At a thousand fifty

I notice a ram

pushing up against

a soft and curly female,

and for a moment

I'm distracted by errant

images of sex.

It is difficult

to keep so many sheep

in line for counting—

they are not a parade

but more like a roiling

sea of whitecaps,

which makes me think

of the shore—

of all those boring

grains of sand

to keep track of

as they slip

through the fingers,

of all the dangers

of sunstroke,

riptide, jellyfish.

The scientists fall

asleep lulled

by equations,

by dreams

of experiments,

and I fall asleep

at last by

counting them:

biologists and

physicists,

astronomers,

geneticists,

and all the many experts

on the subject

of sleep.