I finally found a shepherd who agreed to appear in a poem of mine on YouTube. It was to be bucolic, with flute music. I wasn’t so sure about the sheep. A bleating lamb or two, maybe, but I had to keep costs down. Do you know what an iambic pentameter goes for these days? No love scene. Just the lament of a lonely soul, a rustic in the rusty light of early evening, longing for love. I had a problem, though. My shepherd was over eighty. I thought it best to avoid any accusations of ageism. But I replaced the flute with a cello. Those deep resonant tones brought a somber gravitas to the scene. Joseph carrying a lamb over blank verse.
the world
before the child
grows into our words