The Skull

a poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The bleached skull of a ram
was no longer of interest to sparrows
and blue shimmering flies.
I bee came and rested on its forehead
but viewing this bleak landscape
it quickly took off again.
“Once I was a proud ram
had ticks and flies following me,
often shorn by the shepherd’s hands;
look at me now
I can’t even get off this bloody stone.”
It bleated to the breeze,
which pulled its stomach inn
exhaled and blew the ram’s head off its pedestal
“Anyone for sheep’s brain”
it mockingly hollered
upsetting a refined almond tree’s sensibility
before settling into a mild summer breeze again.