The horse has a 3-acre pasture but there is a path of matted grass from his shed to his sweet-feed bowl in a corner of the pasture. His horseshoes mark the bare ground where he stands to eat like an alphabet with the letters U and C spilled on the ground. A woman in a headscarf walks a 2-rut road through a far pasture. A man with a stick walks on the paved road. The hoof prints of the horses brand the dried mud. The horse watches the child leave on the school bus and return in the afternoon while he waits for his sweet-feed. His ears shaped like small teepees. They turn to the airwaves in the wind that travel the world. The horse picks up on the suffering. He hears the call of geese, birds, field dogs. At night the coyotes. All the refugees. While in the day a gray squirrel runs along the fence-line by his bowl.
From: Vol.09 N.01 – A Poetics of Rights
The Horse
by
Diane Glancy