Ignored by Horses
As I turn the wheel
the car faces eastward.
I search for them,
but drenching sunlight
showers the windshield.
In an awkward attempt
to deflect sudden blindness,
I jerk the visor down.
Squinting, my vision is reclaimed,
and like a reflex,
I scan right to the meadow.
They are there.
Mist billows from the earth
like breath exhaled on a winter’s day.
The horses, immense and silent,
are ships gliding through the fog.
Edging closer,
they press the railings of their boundary.
Snorted vapor,
purged from huge nostrils,
curls and eddies upwards.
Thick tails of coarse hair
instinctively switch at flies not yet present.
I slow the car and watch them.
They stare, luminous eyes of liquid brown
observing, but ignoring my passage.
Instead, they gaze longingly
just beyond the fence’s edge
at a long row of coiled weathered haystacks
as if they were cinnamon buns
in a bakery window.
And so we begin
another misty morning
that will clear and harden
with the sun’s rising.
Me, toiling at my chosen labor,
they, nobly rambling the meadows
well aware of their regal grandeur,
and affording passerbys a glance
with haughty disregard.
Rose S. Williams
©Southernstoryteller
~1998/2010
Back
in 1998 I worked as a nanny for a wealthy couple who lived out in the
country. Every morning, on my way to work, I would ride past a field
with beautiful horses who seemed to be oblivious to me...yet, I was
mesmerized by them.
I finally wrote this poem about them...but unfortunately never got around to photographing them. These shots are from a ride in the country a couple of years ago, so there is no misty fog as the poem says, and...not the same horses, but they will do :)
Rose
I finally wrote this poem about them...but unfortunately never got around to photographing them. These shots are from a ride in the country a couple of years ago, so there is no misty fog as the poem says, and...not the same horses, but they will do :)
Rose
