Slacktrack
I dreamed I watched a sweating stallion pass by in twilight, while a voice narrated the horse's thoughts. The huge beast was led away to be put down in the deep woods by Iron Age riders. I looked at him from a side sky-window, like I were in a slow-moving train or cart. The voice spoke in rhythm with the horse's head and hooves, narrating the following poem which I furiously scribbled as I woke:
He knew by their gait it led away,
stolen from stall, slackened slow
His hoof-fall fell quiet.
He smelt on their hands the sweat of a fall
He felt in the wind the breath of a stop
He heard the train down a lifelong rail,
on the tracks of unknown days,
the way he wondered why clop.
Horseheaving breath cooled him around
He nosed the rime-sighs of night
under heft of heavy riders.
Light smouldered on the edges drawn
within the Chart of Days
inside the twilight hall
where they danced
a horse trance,
men and ladies,
hands clasped at last
in the late dew
of a late fall
[22 November 2010 anno Domini]
