Originally published in Flumes, Winter 2017.
There are deep impressions
in the grass,
tracks from your truck
and muddied sod
from the vet
who “put him down”
and finally
from the renderer
who took his lifeless mass away.
Once
he took flight
In the pasture
throwing up clods of earth.
All that power and grace
so easily extinguished.
On some morning
after the last turn
in your sleep
you may hear a
whinny or a nicker
and not know
if his spirit
visits.
And all the longing
for him
divines into this unguarded
moment
or in the stillness
of a snowscape
a moon set
will throw a shadow
and that shadow
will be a horse.
And should you run
out to the new snow
and find it
hoof pocked
it is
all because
their living
and their passing
pressed so deeply
on your mind
and in your soul.
Copyright © 2017 by Gary Beaumier.
