ONE HORSE
Here beneath this mountain, I rest.
I am alone in this field, her to the north of me,
searching scrub for anything that might sustain me
through the heat of this day,
day after day.
I feel myself alone, although there is the raven,
the crow, the red-tailed hawk who hunts mornings here
just beyond me, eyeing me in her arc.
At dawn, that mountain spears a sky of welted red.
By noon, she glimmers beneath the blue that holds me here.
In the heat, all that I carry within my bones and hair surfaces.
There is the dust, dried grasses, foxtail,
this thin memory of rain.
The heat and the blue hold me.
The mountain looks on.
In late afternoon,
when the clouds roll and build their staircases above me,
the pool of shadows at the mountain’s base whisper
across the crippling haze to me:
Forgiveness.
Forgiveness.
Until they are enough to move me,
until I stand among them,
until they are as gentled hands in my mane.
This day’s searching over,
my head, finally, just hanging.
I rest.
At dusk, the wind calls the clouds.
The sun loses her fierceness, and
then the light is silver,
sideways across the mountain to me,
thrumming sparks along my outline
as I leave the shadows for the open again.
You, in a car passing me on the road
alongside this field, stop and park.
I raise my head to face you.
You come to the fence line, struck and staring
and stand until this light from the mountain
reaches from me to you.
© 2007 Dora E. McQuaid
This is a brand new poem, written earlier today. I sat on the back porch of Billa nd Elaines's in State College and read it to them and Bill B. after I'd edited the first draft of it. Forgiveness. Seems a good thing to offer these days. The poem goes with Lenny Foster's photo called Moody Horse. The image will be up on the site soon, so check back. Chris and I are talking about the edits to the site, getting it updated here soon.
Spring is upon us. Enjoy it. Be well.
ALL PEACE. DORA
