Photo of E. Walking
Sometimes the mist our mothers walk through
makes it hard for us to sing about them—
their ocean gaze so churned with lifting things up,
laying things down. Sometimes we think they’re
unbeautiful, our mothers; then watch as the waters
of an ebbing reflection toss us a face we rise with,
carry through the practical day, try not to blame.
Who passes with her cane, unmade by the light?
Whose steps upstitch the umber strand’s wide,
thousand-year thigh? Remember this thing we call
love, that says go east or west—wear sturdy shoes?
(We try not to trample the compass grass, but
dreaming, we forget.) Steadfast, she parts the milky
unresolved air, as if the end of all sorrow’s out there
Horse in Snow
You might have been chiseled
from bloodwood or igneous,
with a carved gut of crouching
recruits—not a living breed
with stamina steeled beneath
barely flicking withers and a
wispy winter coat. Your heart—
I couldn’t make out a shared pulse
from my passage on Rt. 89;
could see no pearls of whisker
steam paying the frigid afternoon
for dull light. Yet you were real,
all right; this was farm country,
Vermont—the only trick was in
keeping my eyes to the humming
bone of road, as your proud
warrior form, dark empire of
mystery, powered the high hill
of snow behind you. There were
no signs of victory or vengeance,
nothing there so foolhardy and
human. And maybe that’s why
I slowed, heading homeward
along one small vein of my nation,
whose tired flag, wild rag of sorrow,
still pulls through wind along
boundary lines. With your
head erect, unmoving,
you receded in the gray drear
that maybe for horses
is the hue of contentment.
The only hollowness was mine,
and you became my stowaway,
my subterfuge against the
snapping of a made world’s
infinite triggers. You hushed
me through shields of snow,
and I haven’t let you go.
