Classic and Contemporary Poetry
BLUE HOURS: 1. CLOUD-HORSE, by RICK BAROT First Line: Knowing exactly what it needs Subject(s): Animals; Freedom; Horses; Liberty | ||||||||
Knowing exactly what it needs to do, carrying its own particle of worry, or what passes for worry, the spider hurries across the floor, single-minded as a last, brave hoplite. Other mornings the starlings pick the lawn's seeds in practiced fours - one keeps watch while the others feed, always together. Even the potted tulip leans into itself unconflicted, canting its head like a listener to the room's brighter half. So to enter these things, sweet and mannerless. Hours now I have stared at that picture, that horse rushing over its gold field, its walnut-brown body patched with tin-gray, pure-white clouds. Red oaks form a ragged fence on the horizon and I can imagine how the field, the tough grass, are all the horse could ever want, free to the last of What next? Where now? Where is the long day taking me now? Copyright © Rick Barot http://www.unl.edu/schooner/psmain.htm Prairie Schooner is a literary quarterly published since 1927 which publishes original stories, poetry, essays, and reviews. Regularly cited in the prize journals, the magazine is considered one of the most prestigious of the campus-based literary journals. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LOVE THE WILD SWAN by ROBINSON JEFFERS AFTER TENNYSON by AMBROSE BIERCE QUARTET IN F MAJOR by WILLIAM MEREDITH CROSS THAT LINE by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE EMANCIPATION by ELIZABETH ALEXANDER |
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