Recognizing Nobility

If you took a chunk of tropical teak
and rubbed it with coarse grain paper
until it buttered and gleamed,
that is the color of his flank.
And when he rolls his eye toward you in greeting,
it is the brown of liquefied earth,
the brown of remembrance.

Mike carries memory in his bones--
his hocks and cannon bones absorb
the shock of shale, the suck and pull of swampy ground,
the steep incline, the deep furrow.
A heavy horse remembers a time when his strength
was the only measure of power,
remembers the blistering wieght of an armored man--
eight hundred pounds of shield and riveted scales,
recalls fear, battlegrounds, bellowing fields
of clay bank red, blood and mud and weaponry.

Mike has the details in his fat cells, still quivers,
anxious at hail, certain winds, a dangerous crack of timber.
His memory, even generations removed,
is a distant knowing, as his muscles clench
pulling sledges just as his kind have always pulled sledges,
clearing forests, hauling wagons, plowing drills.
He dreams of six-bottom plows and clods
of fudge-colored earth, the sifted hopes
of men who made a country from the efforts of horses.
I believe he remembers jousts, tilting matches,
he dislikes all flags.

Today when the pulling horses come down the fairground hill,
lining up in pairs to test their strength and ability,
they carry the weight of memory, encoded proudly,
heads up, rumps shining like amber honey.
The flash of chrome, haimes and tugs
link me to histroy, real as bone and muscle.

Mike is a noble creature, with a nobility earned
from centuries of horses yoking
their hearts to the will of men.
He watches me now, with ancient patience
and once more we begin the dance,
the ritual bending, his compliance a gift.
He allows his power to yield to my design.

Mary-Beth O'Shea

Biography

Mary-Beth O'Shea has two published collections: Hungry Grass and In Search of the Barnacle Goose.

She and her husband Kip have six Belgians and 4 donkeys. They live in Worthington.