The Horse

In the meadow that ran along our old dirt road,
that flooded in the spring by the stream that ran along its edge,
and under the bridge on our road
and began as a spring that flowed up in an open space in the woods,
where a few years later a gigantic Elm fell
and we pretended it was Moby Dick and we would climb on it
pretending we were Ahab, Gregory Peck on the drive-in screen,
breaking off Elm harpoons to spear the whale,
grasping its huge mass with our outstretched legs.
I cried when they bulldozed the spring and the whale
and put up a huge brick building,
and every business that was in it failed;
they say that to build over a spring is a bad idea,
that the Earth has its own business there
and even today the weeds growing across the parking lot
plow it up in shards of asphalt washing away in hard rains
and all that seems to thrive there is a giant oak
whose roots no doubt go down to reach into the spring;
later they buried the stream underground in galvanized pipes
when they put up apartments in the meadow,
in that marshy field lived the horse.

In the mornings I made my way quickly up the road to the highway
where I would catch my yellow bus
the horse was rarely in the field in the morning,
I had no time for horses when I was making my way into the world
that my parents had sanctified, but I could not understand
rows and columns in a rectilinear world with everything in its place,-
a world where every morning we drew the weather
in a quarter of the little corner of our paper
how could it be the weather nestled in the corner of our paper
it was tidy
a symbol of our supposed awareness of the sun and clouds
but really, our acquiescence to a literal world -
rather than an actual world.
They placed the death of boredom in our hearts,
and the fear of all their worlds in our minds
placing us under desks with our hands above our heads
to ward off their commonplace bombs
drawing the shades so the room grew dark in an animation of our common future
they would take us to the basement and line us up
in the deep darkness there
so we would be protected from the greatest bombs
that would destroy everything that was not prepared
and they would release huge flocks of birds from caves that would attack the insects who
were the only survivors and we would make our new way into the world.
And my parents endorsed this day; after all, they sent me there.
It was a world where the principal, Mrs. Dooley, regularly beat my cousin
with one side or the other of her hairbrush.
It was not a virtual world of the terrors
- but one that exacted its own real price
and I sat in silent awe of its majesty.
And they loved me for my silence
my obedience to their reign of terror
a little tremor ran through me every day as I rode the bus home.

\ I walked a half mile from the highway casting off the day little by little
by watching the silver color of the unmowed field
listening to the bird calls in the wood
smelling the mud of the upcoming meadow
and there along the field’s near edge stood the horse.
Every day the horse watching me approach
eyes filled with compassion thirsting for relationship
and from its nostrils, little rumbles of attention.
And by some divine act of intervention, there was a crab apple tree there
perhaps more than one
I would reach down and pick an apple from the ground
and step onto the crumbling stone wall
and stretch over the two rusted strands of barbed wire
and tentatively hold my hand out to the horse
who would reach out carefully mouth open and moist teeth exposed
pluck it from my hand
branches overhead I would pull another green-red from the tree
place it in my palm before him and he would take it from me.
He might have eaten these apples all day long
but he seemed always to have waited for me
and I would talk to him about the words I learned, the ways of the world -
I did not understand
and little by little the poison seeped out of me
his eyes neutral in love, above right and wrong
and in that, they were simply the most right.

Two years later I was in a new school
my parents having reached the decision with me
that there was some kind of madness afoot
and there I had found new friends, learned to flip baseball cards
rode in the white station wagon to and from school
and I sped down the road
not even looking for the horse in a rush
to watch the last game of the World Series on our new television set.
We had a new television because of the elections
my mother could not resist
I adored staying up with her until three o'clock in the morning
to watch Kennedy nominated over her beloved Stevenson.
But now I could watch the seventh game of the World Series
my hopes were high, Yankees had obliterated Pirates in game six
but the world was changing,
the farmer DeGeese was already packing up his goats and sheep
the horse soon would be gone.
The Yankees would lose on Mazeroski's walkoff home run, I would weep hot tears,
the dynasty would begin to crumble.
Kennedy's election would lead to the vortex of Bay of Pigs
which led to his assassination and the prying open of the chasm
between my reality and the world.
That weekend there was no horse in the field it was gone I know not where
and so I broke empty bottles in our garbage pit and when my supply ran out I searched
for more amongst the rubble and broke those few as well.
This was the poison seeping in, the crushing of Kennedy's skull,
the dissolution of Oswald's bowels were without antidote
I trembled on the edge of power, staggered towards anger
my young nervous system
jumping out beyond the bounds of my mind.
Where was the horse for all of us to speak to
to look into his eyes and feel pure acceptance?
Without the horse my world was cut off, an island, in a world of insanity
And I thought for awhile I liked it that way.