Elegy With A Bridle In Its Hand
One was a bay cowhorse from Piedra & the other was a washed out palomino
And both stood at the rail of the corral & both went on aging
In each effortless tail swish, the flies rising, then congregating again
Around their eyes & muzzles & withers.
Their front teeth were by now as yellow as antique piano keys & slanted to the angle
Of shingles on the maze of sheds & barn around them; their puckered
Chins were round & black as frostbitten oranges hanging unpicked from the limbs
Of trees all through winter like a comment of winter itself on everything
That led to it & found gradually the way out again.
In the slowness of time. Black time to white, & rind to blossom.
Deity is in the details & we are details among other details & we long to be
Teased out of ourselves. And become all of them.
The bay had worms once & had acquired the habit of drinking orange soda
From an uptilted bottle & nibbling cookies from the flat of a hand, & like to do
Nothing else now, & the palomino liked to do nothing but gaze off
At traffic going past on the road beyond vineyards & it would follow each car
With a slight turning of its neck, back & forth, as if it were a thing
Of great interest to him.
If I rode them, the palomino would stumble & wheeze when it broke
Into a trot & would relapse into a walk after a second or two & then stop
Completely & without cause; the bay would keep going though it creaked
Underneath me like a rocking chair of dry, frail wood, & when I knew it could no longer
Continue but did so anyway, or when the palomino would stop & then take
Only a step or two when I nudged it forward again, I would slip off either one of them,
Riding bareback, & walk them slowly back, letting them pause when they wanted to.
At dawn in winter sometimes there would be a pane of black ice covering
The surface of the water trough & they would nudge it with their noses or muzzles,
And stare at it as if they were capable of wonder or bewilderment.
They were worthless. They were the motionless dusk & the motionless
Moonlight, & in the moonlight they were other worlds. Worlds uninhabited
And without visitors. Worlds that would cock an ear a moment
When the migrant workers come back at night to the sheds they were housed in
And turn a radio on, but only for a moment before going back to whatever
Wordless & tuneless preoccupation involved them.
[...] Read more
poem by Larry Levis
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
