GALLOPING HORSES

This has been a difficult summer and now I’m just emerging from
a severe bout with toothache, ending in the tooth being taken out.
There were horses everywhere in those days . A riding
school in the village often brings lovely horses past the house but
these horses don’t stop to pass the time of day. They’re working.

GALLOPING HORSES

That old broken chair
Of horsehair and shiny brown leather,
With splits in the cushions
No amount of polishing could ever repair,
Was kept so long it finally fell apart.

Clumps of wiry brown hair
Tumbling onto the green carpet.
Conjuring up quiet stables full of moonlight,
Restless horses longing to canter
On the grass in the back garden,
If that was all there was on offer.

I dreamt of glowing horses
Offered long orange carrots and ripped green apples.
Big, gentle mouths fastidiously accepting
These small fragments,
As they galloped out of my dreams
Into a world settled on all sides with houses,
Little black spaniels and friendly cats.
But I had a horse and wanted for nothing.

We had hours and hours of being together,
Racing over meadows, trotting over sand,
As that remembered brown leather became a saddle
Which, somehow, I knew how to handle,
The sound of the sea splashing all around us.

That was the way it always was
As we danced together,
On that crumpled old chair of shining brown leather.

©2024 Gwen Grant