Horse Poems

Playing with Horses


Like leaning into cool faced granite,
as if you are a stone wall solid with
such honesty I can only hunger for,
your nose pushes through this
halter loop, a rope binding us,
one skin, side by side. We walk,
slow motion; this game is played in,
a frozen arena, past broken circles,
hoof prints, the peaks and valleys,
a crust of snow, crystals on poles.
I whisper: Now we are Indians
crouching between dark forest firs,
bending behind, tip-toeing through.
Shush: did they spot us?
We rush for the next hemlock.
Then click: one hoof at a time,
as if we can blend in, simply,
another gray trunk alder, until
we come to a halt, heads down.
You are the only wall to my life until
you are my gate that will swing open.


Ride in Dreams


Muffled cadence calls, hooves stamping snow,
horse shoes pass over the prints of deer, elk,
long nailed raccoon and pacing coyote paws.
This winter I will only be able to ride in my dreams.

The courage of dreams will wake me up to the moon’s
challenge laid down in florescence on a plain of white.
I will pull on boots, fur hat; woodstove behind,
red coals fade, into the tong grip of sheering cold.

Hum your name, crunching up the gravel turn-out.
Blue eye shallow as ice; brown eye deep, dark,
you always watch the passing shadows of night.
Second’s pause, my head, soft neck, heated scent,

brush the fizz of horse hair, touch the pink tongue
between your teeth. Saddle, bridle, dark with oil,
tugged off the racks. In dreams, a leg thrown over,
stirrups settle in snow this night, stomp of hoof beats.



Roy Rogers and Trigger


Coming home from work, half past midnight,
compact snow, ice where the fog seals itself
alone on high hills but scatters in wide valleys,
far in the distance, no light at all. Only me hoping
to make my way, breathing, blowing out silence,
sitting behind the steering wheel, this pickup truck.
So this minute I can not show my mare, myself,
walking up the gravel county road yesterday,
only tire wide strips of ice, the rest melted off,
wet, brown, enough glare to pinch the eyes,
ditches are full of rusted slush starting to run.
My mare, myself, practicing our own dance,
her blue eye above my white, frizzed hair,
lead line loosely knotted around the neck:
To the left eight, to the right eight and then
around and around with a halt and a bow.
It’s the bow that brings Trigger to mind. Now,
I can tell you this, it’s simply the act of bowing
that can relax a thousand pound horse like
taking a deep breath, holding and blowing.
But what I can’t explain, sitting in this truck is:
Why Roy stuffed Trigger after the horse died.
I can only hold my mare, myself, together,
the sun in the middle of winter, between this and
that neighbor’s barn, wherever we’re going next:
Listen, I understand unbearableness does come.