ManicDDaily

Horseman

The horseman rides across the hours,
the horseman rides along the sea;
the sand that froths about those hooves
grinding at what grinds in me,
slow, but surely sapping powers

that I had thought ingrained in grooves,
wearing down the bounds of channels
till flow becomes a bird long flown;
north/south/east/west turned to panels
as he flattens direction’s moves.

The horseman harvests salt that’s sown
by all like me who try that way
along the sea, across the hours,
through waking night and darkest day.
Oh, at our side he rides along,
that horseman who reaps salt once sown,
until we lay our burdens down,
until our burdens we lay down.

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Here’s a draft envelope stanza poem for the wonderful Kerry O’ Connor’s archived prompt on With Real Toads.  Thanks to Margaret Bednar for hosting “play it again, Sam” on Toads and bringing Kerry’s older prompt up, since I’d not seen it before  I have deviated slightly from the form, by adding a few extra lines at the end.  

This is some number of poem for April, 2015 National Poetry Monthly.  Note that pic as well as poem is mine–all rights reserved (even though I couldn’t fit in a horseman!) 

PS:  A great example of this form is The Wall, by Hedgewitch, a/k/aJoy Ann Jones, posted on her blog, Verse Escape.