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.
