Equus
When afternoon begins dissolving,
I take Spud and Snook to pasture,
each on a lead, with me between,
both roiling energy, to burst
at the gate and pound up the field
with flanks hard and eyes high,
daring any challenge to their fleet
dominion of that grassy world.
But there is a moment before the gate
where our way narrows between
rank cedars and dogwood by the lane,
when their nimble urgency not to be last
through that tapering speeds them,
and I must keep my feet safe
from theirs, my elbows high,
so as they surge
the crowding will lift and carry me—
so three rib cages crush and drive
in one flow, three backs weld
to rock as one and I am part
of the deep charge against all fettering,
of shoulders churning like boulders
in a flood to deliver us
hoof-drumming ancient plains
with sun and new stems waving
belly high, so we can keep
with distance this heart safe
from what would creep against
our swifting over the globe—
all of this in a few strides
before the cedars are behind,
Spud and Snook ballet wider,
and with feet on the ground now
at the gate, I loosen their leads
and we stream apart
to know again the separate sky,
the close clothing of breeze,
to feel again so sharp the green
and beckoning of grass.
C.E. Greer
(Wind, Spring, 2002)
