Lovely sonnet about the reading on Good shepherd Sunday

[Gabrielle Dean]

I am the door to the sheepfold Malcom Guite

 

Not one that’s gently hinged or deftly hung,

Not like the ones you planed at Joseph’s place,

Not like the well-oiled openings that swung

So easily for Pilate’s practiced pace,

Not like the ones that closed in Mary’s face

From house to house in brimming Bethlehem,

Not like the one that no man may assail,

The dreadful curtain, The forbidding veil

That waits your breaking in Jerusalem.

 

Not one you made but one you have become:

Load-bearing, balancing, a weighted beam

To bridge the gap, to bring us within reach

Of your high pasture. Calling us by name,

You lay your body down across the breach,

Yourself the door that opens into home.

An excuse to post again about the ancient  seaweed eating sheep breed of North Ronaldsay, northernmost Orkney island.  Graze on seaweed throughout the year. Mothers are brought into the  paddocks for lambing,