Year
If you were here now I too would
speak of horses encountered on a
hill in the south of France, Monthaut,
its ruined church without knees,
sun low over foothills of the Pyrenees.
From shadowed trees downhill
at least 20 of them run to me.
I feel them before they appear,
hooves tearing dirt and grass
in their manic ascent up the
steep arriving like excited
birds, haunches quivering,
damp from late-summer heat.
Their soft noses push my hands,
their chests pure press
hard against barbed wire.
They offer themselves to me,
their long necks extend
heads dipping shyly,
not without some blood -
I think of you now as I did then,
remembering our bellowing lungs
in rich shared air, odors entwined
of earth, mane, those sweet
grasses, and the binding brier
where they stamped, trembling.
Not poetry here,
Old Master;
just reporting,
how it all breaks open
blindly between doldrums,
dark hammock refusing
to be swayed on a bad day.
Something is here you already
know but if there is forgetting on
the other side of the fence
I remind you now.
My hands caress
echoing equine graces.
In their eyes I can see
in that way of all breezes
finally where you went.
speak of horses encountered on a
hill in the south of France, Monthaut,
its ruined church without knees,
sun low over foothills of the Pyrenees.
From shadowed trees downhill
at least 20 of them run to me.
I feel them before they appear,
hooves tearing dirt and grass
in their manic ascent up the
steep arriving like excited
birds, haunches quivering,
damp from late-summer heat.
Their soft noses push my hands,
their chests pure press
hard against barbed wire.
They offer themselves to me,
their long necks extend
heads dipping shyly,
not without some blood -
I think of you now as I did then,
remembering our bellowing lungs
in rich shared air, odors entwined
of earth, mane, those sweet
grasses, and the binding brier
where they stamped, trembling.
Not poetry here,
Old Master;
just reporting,
how it all breaks open
blindly between doldrums,
dark hammock refusing
to be swayed on a bad day.
Something is here you already
know but if there is forgetting on
the other side of the fence
I remind you now.
My hands caress
echoing equine graces.
In their eyes I can see
in that way of all breezes
finally where you went.
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