ManicDDaily

Horse

You see an old horse lying in a field
and after the alarm–is he okay?—
think of your grandmother, how she wielded,
you were told, frayed rope and a cock-eyed pulley–
nothing that they owned worked right–to try
to keep a beloved horse on all fours,
believing that if he laid down, he would die,
but if they kept him up the night and more,
up, upon his hooves, all would be well. 

First, she swayed him high with her own arms,
but he was a horse. So, as he knelt,
she resorted to the hoists, as if charms
against gravity could ward off death.
How she wept, you were told, at his last breath. 

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Here’s a little sonnet about a horse resting in a field and also about my grandmother, who loved horses.  A few years ago, I wrote another poem about this same story, called Colonel, that may be found here. 

This entry was posted on August 28, 2021 at 7:09 am and is filed under poetry, Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Horse Poem, Karin Gustafson poetry, manicddaily, sonnet