Amber & Dally

Two Horses

By Mary Oliver

The horses Jack and Racket have gone down to the Alysian Fields It is a world without fences The creeks do not run dry but splash and bubble over rocks worn smooth as silver Jack and Racket bend their long necks down and drinking are made young again Their bones vanish back into good shapes of Shire and Appaloosa Of course life isn’t like this Life is two graves big as cellar holes at the foot of the North meadow covered in stones Which is why this morning I wind my fingers around some stray hair caught in the gate catch and inhale their salty fragrance And why I imagine in some far pasture two dappled giants lipping lazily apples fallen from the ever baring trees