It was wet & white & swift and where I am
we don't know. It was dark and then
it isn't.
I wish the barker would come. There seems to be eat
nothing. I am usually tired.
I'm alone too.

If only the strange one with so few legs would come,
I'd say my prayers out of my mouth, as usual.
Where are his note I loved?
There may be horribles; it's hard to tell.
The barker nips me but somehow I feel
he too is on my side.
This poem is written in the voice of a sheep.  The “barker” is a reference to a sheepdog; the “strange one with so few legs” is undoubtedly the shepherd.  In the history of poetry, the shepherd is a central poetic image/character beginning with the Greeks.  This genre is often known as  “pastoral”  poetry and the convention is still us, though it was in the Renaissance that the trope really took off. 
 These literary shepherds were read (often) as metaphorical poets, their flutes, for example, harkening back to Pan’s reed flute (Pan being the Greek god of music).  Hence, the lost sheep’s reference to the missing shepherd’s instrument, “where are his notes I loved?”
Dream Song 28: Snow Line