The tears arrived. The singing broke off, and gave way to sniffling and heaving. I was aware of what was happening next to me, but I continued to sing. Father, too, sang on. He was describing the baby for its animal mother:

Soft little ears—

toega—toega—toega

Small little mouth—

toega—toega—toega

Skinny little legs—

toega—toega—toega

Curly little tail—

toega—toega—toega

Mother had regained control. Her voice sounded strong again and seemed rested:

You are our father—

toega—toe …

But the singing halted abruptly when a scream rang out. The scream began bright and clear, but quickly drowned in muffled, endless gurgling. Eventually the gurgling ebbed into sobs and wheezes. I saw the ewe for whom the disrupted song was meant walk away, and then I saw its lamb fall: the lamb’s mother had pushed her baby over as she tore away. The lamb cried and flailed about, but its crying was as faint and weak as its flailing. Mother’s sobbing and wheezing, on the other hand, was loud, and I had the feeling that the entire hürde was listening and waiting anxiously for what might come next. Words came next—they poured out, one on top of the other, all aimed at the sky. It was as if Mother had grabbed the sky, as if she had grabbed this hard-hearted old father by his hair and was plucking away at him. I was relieved because the wordless sobbing and wheezing had been terrifying.

“Oh, what a hard-hearted father you are!” she yelled, her eyes turned upward. She waved her hands, which were clenched into fists.

“You who punishes us so severely! Oh, what have we done? Have we not lived in constant fear and infinite awe of you? Ah? Why do you punish us so cruelly and needlessly? Eeh? We’d be better off renouncing you and listening to others, we’d be better off urning our backs on you!”

And on it went. It was as if somebody had hurt her deeply and now she was quarreling with him.

Father and I stayed with our sheep, continued our work, kept on singing. I tried to come up with beautiful, difficult words for my song so I wouldn’t have to listen to what Mother yelled or rather screamed at the blackish-blue night sky. But the words I needed seemed to hide behind the sheep, and I could not find them. While I relaxed a little even as I searched desperately for words to fill the lines of the toega, I listened and watched helplessly what was happening next to me. I had to admit that Mother was not entirely wrong with her outburst. Father, meanwhile, was endlessly repeating his song about the little ears and the little mouth and the little legs and the little tail. Maybe he felt the same way I did?