The Gray Mare

With my left hand on her shoulder, my right hand
sliding across her back, I take in the smell of horse,
pushing my nose into her hair, rubbing against her
until she leans into me as if she wants to fall asleep
inside the love, stroking and stroking until her coat
has the brightness of new starlight, the morning
sounds of the brood of beagle puppies in the barn,
the calves out in the back pasture trying to nurse.
Up and down the length of her side, one hand
to steady myself, one hand to measure the distance
inside a wish to be one with horse and landscape,
the way the sky feels when I lift my hands, stretch
my arms apart to split the clouds and know a horse
is the fragile piece of God, the one divine bit of flesh
that fell to the earth with us, took on the definite bones
of being mortal to be what we cannot be, strong
where we are weak, weak where we are strong so
we become the one thing when I stretch my hands
over the back of this gray mare and we are saved.