Winged Hooves

Wingéd Hooves

October 20, 2005

When the groaning, rolling, foaling,

     Mare is swelling, helling, shelling,

Flanks sweating, heaving, heating,

     There comes the colt.

Everybody knows the foals that

     Show and grow and know

That the grass is always greener

     over there.

'Cross the raging, aging river

     with its crazen, changen sliver

Bound lighty, flighty, leapin'

     knobbly legs.

Catch his hoof in deep abysses,

     fallen into long dead wishes,

That young foal did so miss it,

     broke his foot.

Far off futures, once so bright,

     now are doomed to deepest plight.

Panic stealing life's last breath,

     what a fright!

Days go by and by, without a

     single cry

From her dearest, merest child

     Oh m' lord.

As days go by, and time goes 'wry,

    time fades away, to dusky grey.

The mother grieves and fails to eat,

    her heart too weak to beat.

The farmer knew, she'd not pull through

    once she lost her love.

He watched her go, got down low,

    and pet her sayin' "woahhh."

Gentled her last minutes, master

    breathing in her ears,

Words of soothing comfort, whispered

    lullabies.

As her last weak breaths were taken,

    ran a boy slightly stricken.  At

The sight of the dying mare,

    knees buckled.

Sagging against the brown stall door,

    the boy stared at his dead colt's mare,

Tears streaming down his paling cheeks.

    Oh! Woe is he!

Before clouding eyes, memories

   of grassy green and bluing skies

Of yellow sun and daffodils.

   Happy days.

But return does the stall, once more,

   lying on the woodchip floor,

The mare thinks of her little foal,

   now no more.

He was white, whiter than the moon.

   Unlike mother, blacker than the Swoon

Of night that's fallen, but what's unique

   of colt, not mom,

Was but his black, black star upon

   his brow, rare om’n.

-------------------------------------

And so, to this day, did that boy

   say of Starry Night

And mare.

A sadder tale

   nigh unveil

The reason for lost souls.

The children of the farm, thus learned,

   of their grandfather who helped foal

A mystic soul that

   fell into that blackened hole.

To this day, this story retold,

   that mother and child,

Mare and foal,

   still haunt those pastures freezing cold.

I was trying to mimic the beautiful songlike quality of Poe.  It is the one and only poem of mine that has succeed to make me shiver and cry.  I just hope someone feels something twinge when they read it.