It's Odd

It's odd.

I know I shouldn't; but I do get it.
Just vaguely.
This feeling.
Not every time, but sometimes.
OK, mostly it's when it's thick and creamy.
Looks more like it, see.
More like it used to look.

So I get this odd feeling.

OK, I know, I've been told they don't need it any more.
Glad to be rid of it in fact.
In the summer.
But that doesn't change anything.
I still get it.
This feeling.

It's like it's theft.
As if I've stolen it.
Which I have I suppose.
Stolen it.
Nobody asked.
Not even nicely.
Nobody said "Please"
Just "I'll have that".

And now I've got it.
Makes me complicit, see.
In a crime.

Possessing stolen goods.
To wit one coat, woollen, natural colour.

And I feel guilty as I knit.
But it does no good.
I'm not about to give it back to the sheep.
No matter how guilty I feel about it.

Actually I don't feel that guilty.
It's just a little qualm.
A thought.
About sheep and wool and how they need their fleece and how they feel warm and cosy one minute and all of a sudden it's gone and no-one asked them for permission or anything and they shiver even though it's summer and they look all odd and uncomfortable and naked and silly without their coat and sheep aren't silly now are they?

But sometimes they do lose bits.
Of fleece.
All by themselves.
Without help.

You know, just tufts.

You see a bit of wool snagged on a bramble or a
Piece of barbed wire.

A little white flash in the field.
On the ground
They don't feel it.
Don't notice.
Perhaps.

We don't do that.
Do we?
Leave little bits of ourselves all over the place?
Without noticing?

Don't answer that.