September 2, 2005

• For the poetry challenge “tag” look at the entry for 9/1.

  
  

  Here is a poem I started writing a year ago that I reworked and I’m kind of happy with the result.  Please share your comments as they are always appreciated.

  
  

  El John

  
  

  There is something about
  women and horses
  how they are pictures of beauty,
  a representation of
  the wild untamed beast
  hidden inside of us all.

  
  

  On the back of my horse
  I was invincible.  El John
  would tear up the hillside
  his hoofs pounding the ground
  in sweet rhythmic cadence
  to a natural, earth song.

  
  

  The smell of corn growing
  and hay, freshly mowed
  in Pennsylvania’s Laurel Highlands
  filled my nose and lungs
  like an intoxicating drug as
  the wind whipped his mane.
  
  It was the closest thing to flying
  you can feel while on the ground
  a kind of safe danger,
  he would reach a naked gallop
  with joyful abandon, his mouth
  foaming at the exertion of his power.

  
  

  I think of El John now
  as I sit beside my dying father.
  Smiling weakly, he closes his eyes.
  Every breath is labored now
  as he becomes a shadow of
  the man he once was.

  
  

  One summer, the rides with El John
  and the innocence of unstoppable youth
  came abruptly to an end.
  Unlike his thunderous hooves,
  death came quietly and peacefully
  as he did not wake up one June morning.

  
  

  Holding my father’s aging hand
  I cherish this time to say goodbye,
  a luxury I did not have with El John.
  As his minutes on earth ebb away,
  I realize that the hardest and rarest
  part of love is in the letting go.

  • 12:29 pm
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