In Early Spring

The fields were still matted,
and dirty snow huddled
in patches, but the swing
of the earth had taken place

and it tilted toward the sun’s
warmth that heated up
the back of my neck.
When I passed the horse

I pass every day on my walk,
it whinnied and tossed
its head back and forth –
perhaps a touch of sun

worship in him
or the need to shake off
months of cold, or maybe
to shake me from myself –

and for once it had
my undivided attention,
and it bent its long neck down
to a ball and ran, its head

moving the ball left then
right with the deft touch
of a soccer player. Again
and again, it cut and drove

the ball from one end
of its ring to the other,
Spring’s energy moving
through its body, flanks

and hooves taking form,
its tail and mane becoming
the single unbroken line
of a prehistoric horse

drawn on the muscled stone
of a cave wall. Standing there,
the soft animal of my body
roused itself, and I began to run –

not far and downhill mostly –
toward the pond where, bent over,
chest heaving, I stopped
to laugh at myself and catch

my breath. Six geese
skidded in, a towhee
and then a redwing blackbird
called out, and the light

on the water quickened
in a breeze, each thing
shaping itself to the shape
of the minute, the month,

the season, the turning earth.

Robert Cording