What the Mare Did at Midnight

by Kiyoshi Hirawa

It was midnight and moonlight

when the Mare trampled her foal,

staining the sunflowers.

Stampeding bison hid

the hammering hailstone of hooves.

Western skies flickered, watching

her alabaster legs fall from on high

like twin tusks,

paralyzing what had not yet risen,

silencing what had not yet spoken,

giving to the grass what had not yet eaten.

The last breath rose,

a rare summer prairie cloud

entreating the river’s mist,

but was snared by the Mare's nostrils

and buried in her lungs.

Her spattered chest heaving,

the Mare abandoned the bones,

shadowing the bison,

forsaking the herd,

chasing the rain,

chasing the rain.

Her own race, her own pace.

Exhilaration, not exertion.

The Prairie waters every pasture,

but the rain remembers what it washed,

and what it washed away,

and every stream spills stories,

so the river waited

while the wolf nursed.

The Mare cantered on, though none yet pursued.