For all your forsworn labors

When Horses Pass

When horses pass, stop and consider—
the wheel, the hoof, how the day rolls
across the sky above you; how the ground
heaves beneath your passage. The wind
may catch in your hair and the willow
keep all its stoic suffer from your
witnessing. There are other concerns
to pause the turn of what you stand on.

Mind their flanks at sunrise, how the
light inlays a broad perfectitude, noble
as a swirl of gases that faintly smudge
your genesis between iron studs of
Orion’s spangled belt. Lift your head
in the wearing of cindered manes set
with all the fire you’ve forgotten to
wash your hair with at daybreak.

When horses pass, stop and consider—
the pull, the press, the feel of tack in
the mouth, how the bitter patina of days
feed the drive through oakborne paths
laid out before you. For all your forsworn
labors, there is no other way but through
the spiked heart of a gaited stable that
holds your fenceless rest in nesting hay.

Joseph Gallo
November 1, 2009