A proper respect for horses - Poem

A Proper Respect for Horses

   Horse-hoofs clattered
   clatter-clunk! clatter-clunk!
   Clunk!
   clatter-clunk!
   clatter-clunk!

   Wind shoved
   and the slippery ice
   on its shoes, in the street--
   in a trice, in a beat,
   in a skid
   its legs went out from under it.
   Crump!

   And all at once
   the mocking crowd
   appeared and with their big mouths gawping,
   all gaw-haw, hee-haw, haa haa
   surrounded it
   in their fancy flared jeans, all the fashion just then.
   `The poor old horse is slipped!'
   `The fired old horse is down!' they sneered.
   And all along Kuznetsky, they howled at it and laughed.

   All
   Except for me.
   I didn't join that crowd to laugh at her.
   I went fight up and looked
   into that chestnut eye--

   the street tipped over like
   a glass off a table--

   while I knelt there to see
   the tear-drops scramble down the cheek and neck
   and slip into her mane, and hide
   And some strange sort of common sense
   spilled out of my heart and flowed
   running like a waterfall, suddenly undammed.

   `Oh horse,
   don't cry!
   Listen to me now.
   Don't think that they're any better than you.
   Oh, child, don't you know, horses are we all,
   to be honest,
   in the end: everyone's a horse
   in some kind of way.'

   Ah well. Maybe she was old and wise
   and didn't need my words.
   Or maybe I was just too soft.

   But there and then
   the horse
   jerks up
   clatters to her feet--
   whinnies in the frosty air
   and gallops down the street!
   My chestnut child!
   With a flick of her tail
   like a yearling
   she canters into her stall
   ready for work once again
   for the life that's worth it all!

Alan Riach, formerly Associate Professor of English and Pro-Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, is now Head of the Department of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow. Riach's books include Clearances, First & Last Songs, Open Return, This Folding Map, and a critical study, & Hugh MacDiarmid Epic Poetry. Riach is also the series editor of the collected works of Hugh MacDiarmid, published by Carcanet Press.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Fairleigh Dickinson University
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group