Photo: Andy McGee
Reconnaissance
for Jack
Do
you remember the day
the
fire came to the ranch,
how
it was to see all the horses
together
on high barren ground
charged
up, foaming with apprehension,
the
terror that sent them wheeling
as
one, like wind-blown sparrows?
Or
more recently, our giving the old mare
a
shot, the stumble and cascade
of
her body to the earth,
the
winching of the body
to
the flat bed of the truck,
the
cargo beneath the blue tarp.
Love
in its blue body bag,
the
discreet removal
of
the lost?
ii
I
remember our riding into the timber
at
the headwaters of the Rio Grande,
the
soft rain, that I put on a slicker
sitting
on a young horse who knew enough
to
stand, while you watched from a dark gelding
back
in the tall firs.
What
if he had bolted, if I had fallen,
if
I had not been falling for you?
Do
you know that even now,
when
we spoke in the late dust-filled
daylight
over
our hands and hair
that
I wanted to reach for you,
and
stopped myself,
as
if I could carve a chasm of not
yearning
in the very floor;
do
you see how we meander on,
as
if we were in the Grand Canyon
on
two old Arabians, one of us far ahead,
the
other lagging, having taken
a
shortcut down
to
the mirage of water?
iii
I
remember the golden eagle in the eyre
above
the old ranch in the wilderness.
You
recall the osprey nest
on
the utility pole
at
the end of the road,
where
hatchlings fledge and nothing ends,
merely
fades into the staunch and climbing
dusk
poplar stand,
our
house, its windows
refracting
cloud passage, moonrise--
and
horseless now,
the
tangle of it all, where we
trip
ourselves up:
the
incidental macramé nests
of
twine from the cache’
of
weather-rotten bales.
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copyright Jenne' R. Andrews 2012
3 comments:
Lovely, Jenne. The meaning of the title, which is perfect, is beautifully expressed in your lyrical stanzas.
Wishing you the blessings of the Christmas season.
Earthy, wistful, and absolutely beautiful.
WoW! That last stanza blew me away!
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