Climbing his tortuous way from Kanzalwan,
GuIzaman leaves the river, buckwheat harvests
and slopes dark with conifers. His breath comes
in a half-choked whistle, the air uncertain
whether to burst through the lungs or whoosh
out of the mouth.

He doesn't remain with his people now,
among the sheepfolds and high-pasture huts.
They rag him, 'GuIzaman, where is the son?
Can we help?' 'Here comes the randiest ram
in the valley!' They're not funny, these jibes
at his virility. So each sundown he leaves
for the river to sleep in a stone-breaker's
pine-hut, till at dawn the sheep call him.

GuIzaman strains up the last hundred feet
to reach the fold. Expectant ewes
seek shelter from the wind under the lee
of limestone walls. He sees his kinsmen,
bearded and gaunt and broad-boned as himself,
brooding over a dead kid. Rain starts hissing.
There has been such heavy sleet the week past
that in the sheepfolds new-borns have been dying.
With the mothers wind-weakened and fed
on wet grass, the lambs are still-born, flopping
inert on the earth. Ewes don't even lick
them and probe for hidden embers of life
with their raking tongues. Broken, they turn
on their sides like sacks of crushed ice.

The turf is sodden but his own fold
is a small den made snug by bales of hay.
His ewe snuggles up to him and bleats
recognition, a thin tremolo of love
blanketed by gutturals of pain.
Relations crowd, darkening the doorway,
as with heavily-greased arms GuIzaman
examines her. Yes, the lamb is on its way!
An hour later it is there, quavery-legged
and wet and uncertain about
its rickety, four-pronged hold on the earth.
Shortly it pees. Allah be praised, now it will live.
It cannot die of a chill in the stomach.
Either the doorway has been cleared, or clouds
have been parted for an instant by the sun.
GuIzaman picks the dun-coloured lamb and holds
it to his chest. 'This', he says, 'this is my son.'