The lion lays down with the lamb

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I dream I walk a sloping field with friends. 

The grass is long and full of healthy damp,

I'm crouching, tickled where my trousers gape,

The others chatting somewhere over there.

 

A giant bull is charging me, horns down.

I fall flat on my back. Oh! I'll play dead! 

Eyes closed, each nerve fixated on the sounds - 

The heated huffing on my timid arm,

My tender navel brushed by searching breath,

The muzzle, hefty-horned and broad as me. 

 

No fight in me, there's nothing I can do.

Play dead or be dead, nothing I can do.


The bull stops snuffling, lifts his massive head

And lays it next to my defenceless ear.

Bristles weaving through my thinner hair,

We breath together, we are one warm lung.

For how long I don't know - he ambles off,

His solid thighs in flow as I wake up.


How sweet it was! But I know better now,

Since I'm not trampled, he must be a cow.


These blogs are explorations of adult emotional development and how understanding it can help us to live. I am a retired psychiatrist, mother and zen-based mindfulness teacher. In this blog I try to look the reality of life and death squarely in the eye. I am aware this is not for everyone. If you are squeamish about the idea please consider this your trigger warning.

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