A poem from Wren Tuatha’s Pandemic//Planet//Protests: Poetry of Place workshop sponsored by Sacramento Poetry Center. The interrogation question was “where do you rest your horse?”
Resting My Horse
I rest my horse moving. Retired cowpony
with broken wind, OK at easy walk or canter,
me bareback, high-school light.
After-class reciting bits of the day’s lessons.
What if a much of a which of a wind
It revives me. Me and my horse,
Molly, safety of aloneness with a wordless
friend. I think fresher on the move.
Does my horse? Easy head-lift samples
the air, gauges wind down a dry canyon,
off mountains beyond miles of alfalfa fields.
True rest requires water.
That comes later, back at the barn.
Our rest is stretching bored muscles,
settling into a pace that goes on
almost forever in a high-school mind.
Always moving.
~ Taylor Graham
