The Sheep and the Golden Fleece

A fable for Gordon Chang.

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There once was a sheep with a fluffy tail and snout.
Though the sheep could talk and was very much pronounced,
It didn’t care to be among his flock. It said:
“I don’t need them, baah! They're just standing on me head!”

And so the sheep went out in the meadow of man
Where it met a lumberjack, quite a handyman.
He looked up and said, “This must be my providence,
“Here I was hungry, and a meal comes to its sense!”

He took his axe, and the sheep he set to carve out,
Though the lamb cried loud! To its knees it fell to shout:
“Please sir, I’m like you, but meek and obedient,
Don’t kill me with your axe, I'm a sheep that’s decent!
I will take you to my flock, they make a fine meal,
One that's filling and tasty, to end your ordeal!”

The man stopped short of an arm. He thought and pondered:
Finally a sheep that knows it's sheep and not bird!
“Show me your friends, then, and I will eat like a king!
And your life will be spared, at least until the spring.”

So the sheep took man to his friends, though friends no more,
And stood there as the swings culled them down four by four.

When his bloodlust was satiated in carnage,
And the sheep thought he had gotten rid of garbage,
The man set to skin the corpses, salivating.
And the sheep watched him in silence, validating.

“What a feast your herd is to me, my helpful sheep!”
Said the man then with a big wide smile on his lip.
“I will not tell my mates about it, rest assured,
And for the moment your life and meat are secured.”

The sheep with a timid wheeze looked on in horror,
As the fields of green were now red by the scor’r.
“But I am alive still,” the sheep sighed shortly
As it trailed his tail behind the man softly.

***

The sheep would continue to give the man his kind
So that it kept his life and made a livelihood
Out of the carnage the man in meadows could find.
“When there are no more sheep he'll tire, he likely would!”

This thought scared the little lamb, who thought himself next
On the plate of the man he liked to call his friend.
But more men came, hunters and butchers, all them vexed
That sheep was serving man instead of being dead.

Though the man protected his gift horse, explaining
That it was worth more alive and helping; At peace
with selling its own to man without complaining!
All to save its selfish — but surely golden — fleece.

The men gathered, and in unison they exclaimed:
“Your horse will help us then! We deserve our fleece too!”
Without a choice, the little sheep bleated, now tamed:
“Fine, my lieges. Help yourselves, my herd is for you!”

***

And the sheep for years gave way to the whims in kind,
Losing by the hundreds his own to save but one —
Swindling and dwindling until all of them were down,
The sheep fleecing, “man surely must by now be blind!”

Or so the little lamb thought — that he had been forgiven,
For the dire crime of being both the food and prey
Of hungry men who never felt full anyway,
Though the sheep didn’t think that it was a given.

“How much can they eat!” it would whisper quietly,
Not wanting to admit that it was quite well scared
By the sharp teeth that ate sheep scrumptiously prepared,
And this thought brought, sheepishly, much anxiety.

“I’ll just have to keep feeding them, that's all, is it?”
The lost lamb said to forget the looming danger.
“After all, can I still to them be a stranger?”
It tried to cheer up, not believing it one bit.

***

For years there were sheep to eat, until there were not.
“You’ve eaten them all! I’m the only sheep that’s left!”
Cried the little lamb, who was feeling quite bereft.
“What will you do,” it said, hoping to be forgot.

“Of course we’ll eat you, mutton!” in unison came,
The deafening roar of the always hungry men.
And the sheep they tore into, right there and right then.
For the first time, though t'was too late, the sheep felt shame.

Digging in the flesh, through the lamb of golden fleece
That had brought them bounty a-plenty and famine,
The wool turned red as they render and examine
The contents of their golden goose that was at peace
Up until there were no more sheep nor even geese,
Until a craven duck to the village swam in.