Produced by Dennis Camire

This week’s poem is by Ellen Taylor of Appleton, department chair of humanities at the University of Maine at Augusta.

 

Resting Place

By Ellen Taylor

 

Burly white Percheron, he laid like a fallen cloud

in a trough behind the pole barn, his spine

against the earth, his legs stretched up the incline

as though in a yoga pose that calls for deep breath.

By morning, he had worn a sunken bowl by rocking

back and forth, working to plant his hooves beneath

him. Glistening with sweat, chest heaving, he panted

as he labored to turn, only to fall, each time more defeated.

We tried shovels and pick axes to level the ground

around him, but found granite instead of clay.

We tried hobbles and ropes and two tractors to move him,

and this succeeded to pull him from the ditch to an open field

where he laid still, his dirt-speckled chest rising and falling.

We wrapped a sling around his belly, raised him with the tractor

bucket until his forelimbs pawed the air like Pegasus,

yet his hind legs sagged, unable to bear his weight.

We let him down on a worn wool blanket

where he closed his white lashes and sighed:

Oh brave, trusting horse – for a decade you pulled

carriages through the streets of Philadelphia:

maybe you endured those silly hats and cranky drivers;

or maybe you enjoyed the clopping of your hooves on pavement,

the curry comb circling your wide hips, a soft brush

feathering your face before setting out to work each day.

Or maybe it was just a job, like we all have to do,

to fill our feed bins and bellies. No matter. Here

you hauled logs through stony fields

and hardscrabble barrens, and now, you rest

your tired haunches on this rugged hillside farm,

warm air blowing from your enormous nostrils

as a May snow squall blows through, leaving

an icy shawl on your fallen shoulders.

Blessed be this moment, trees bowing, your breath

fading; the snow will cover us all.

 

Dennis Camire can be reached at dcamire@cmcc.edu