sun baked day

like all days

just a day

until it is

something more

the horses came

two lean large eyed

looking hungry

horses

two

prosperity after

hunger after want

after white light

so bright blinded

now we can see

what the hard ground

will yield when we

have more muscle

only as good as the tools

we use he used to say

pride in his dark eyes

leading thin horses

up a rocky hill

our horses

our hill

our chance

a extra hot water

cornbread day like

sunday on tuesday

celebration

signs of our right

to be lucky

to continue to struggle

in the storm

to continue performing

the miracle of

pulling

our skinny life from the dirt

god sent horses

we will eat only

beans for a month

to pay for them

say hallelujah and

pass the hot water

corn bread pour the last

of the syrup we fall down

to get up always reaching

we go forward no chance

turned to slim chance

we dance thankful

for the promise

in the horses

we will fatten them

planting hope in them

like the seeds we

will plant

in hopes of harvesting

more than ill will

rolling down like

the rain we pray

up in the heat of

0ur deep hunger

in soul to rise like

the sparse shoots

that defy odds to

keep us just alive

enough to want more

two horses

lead by a slender rope

harnessing our future

last night I intended to

dream of the horse eaters

standing stoically

against the wind

I dreamed instead

the wind

chafing my thoughts of

going forward

tenderly carrying calloused

dreams of locomotion

needing translation

loosely layered over

real rude reality rubbing

out today’s music in

the dark silences

made scripture by devotion

the wind howling pushing

blowing a dirty blue ditty

eating the foam off the ocean

crying in the key of God

screaming remember

I woke shivering

wind playing with

the curtain in the window

recalling dreams of flight

grateful for the wind

we grew out of the soil

from ancient coastal cities

with music in their names

we have forgotten

the names of the cities

the meaning of the rhythms

we traversed the unknown

unwillingly eaten by a thing

we would come to know have

names for but that would come

later after we learned to swim

without water to fly

without wings

to hold our breath

praying for the morning

before suffering lead us

to imagine locomotion

a way of

being born again

after dying out of

the known to the nothing

to conjure life

in the belly of death

burning in the night

claim the body

dig the hole

in the morning

gone now  taken

made holy ghost

invisible

learning to walk without legs

to climb by

instinct reclaiming

recreating making  new out

of scraps of memory

of necessity

in the name of survival written

in blood ink

the story of becoming

to overcome

still overcoming standing

on broken things that

struggled to leave

enough to stand on

giving all and all

to the all and all of

going forward

knee deep in nightmares

of bloody leaves

successions of shallow graves

without markers

walking on water in

a storm

roaring through centuries of

trying to  make it

to the morning

after the thunder stills

the lightening is quiet

the road is clear the path open

the rain subsides

and the way is clear

so that rising is possible

each generation standing

on the other reaching

for the sun singing

fire songs to stars reflected

on a still ocean

—————–

Painting: Intense Thoughts by Laurie Copper

there was a time we

watched the skies from

a different point in the universe

we saw even the ones

that were invisible

then cotton came

we crossed the

graveyard to serve

cotton sugar indigo

spitting out the eaters of horses

into the storm

sore from bondage

bent spirits never bowed

unbroken planting themselves

on the side of a hill

praying life out of it

holding on to it with bleeding

fingers  rubbing hope

between calloused palms

breathing out a future

that would be taller

go further went farther

sold the land

went to the city

got degrees

that said we know

should have held on to the land

now landless in the city

where the ground is melting

where what you know

is not what you need

having forgotten what you

should have remembered

larger stars tales from

the graveyard indigo sugar

and old cotton

you find yourself

in the wrong conversations

hugging the wind that

won’t blow for you

consumed by hunger

no horses to eat here

broken promises

debts due

no horses mules

or acres of land

what’s left to be

manifest in the eye

of the whirlwind

how will tomorrow

eat how will we

survive the day

unless we snatch

the thunder sing

the lightening

become the force

that drives the storm

calling forth the morning after

with the road cleared

for the tale the future

rooted as firmly

as the horse eaters

imagined in cold winters

looking over barren fields

sharpening knives

to clear our path