Billy Collins: " Flock"

I listened to a radio program on NPR this evening as I prepared dinner. Garrison Keillor hosted a little lecture/interview/discussion with two poets, Kay Ryan and Billy Collins. The latter, a U.S. poet laureate, read a poem that made me smile and so I went online, looked it up, and thought I would share it with you.

He said it was inspired by reading an article about the history of printing. This line from the article got him thinking:

“It has been calculated that each copy of the Gutenburg Bible required the skins of three hundred sheep.”

The poem is entitled, simply, "Flock."

I can see them, squeezed into the holding pen, behind the stone building where the printing press is housed

All of them squirming around to find a little room

And looking so much alike it would be nearly impossible to count them

And there is no telling which one of them will carry the news

That the Lord is a Shepherd

One of the few things they already know