THE LANGUAGE OF HORSE

To a ten year old boy from the city
the Belgian draft horses of his uncle
were humungous beasts, ominous,
their looming nearness disturbing
and fearful as steam locomotives
when you stood on the trembling
train platform. It was just one
of the many fears he had to overcome
in this strange new world of farm animals..

In time he realized the horses
were gentle, despite their daunting bulk
and the greatest danger to him
could result from their not being
aware of his presence. Once, he tried
to squeeze between Big Jim and the stall,
only to be flattened against the stall wall
when Jim expanded his substantial girth.
At nearly two thousand pounds, Jim
was not merely a large horse;
in a small boy's eyes, Jim was gargantuan.
It took his sudden loss of breath
and near suffocation to teach him
always to announce his presence,
call out their names whenever he
sought to approach them and never
to take for granted that they knew
he was there. But learn he did.

It was the language of horse
that baffled at first. He soon recognized
each horse had its own harness,
the contraption of leather and rings,
buckles and straps horses worked in.
But harness wasn't good enough --
it was the skeleton and you had to know
the names of all the bones.

It was words like halter and hames,
bit and bridle, collar and rein,
words his uncle threw at him as if
they were self-evident --.this language
so foreign to him. It was a childhood
epiphany that each new landscape
he encountered from that point on
would come with its own language,
its own lexicon to be snapped
or buckled in place, for him to become
part of and in turn for it
to become a part of him.

THE PANHANDLERS

Every day we see them along the busy street:
standing, squatting, sitting, cross-legged
silent buddhas, their backs against businesses,
caps or hats or styrofoam coffee cups
before them on the sidewalk awaiting
coins or bills tossed by those few who
may be piqued with sudden shock
or shame about this world so removed
from the routine comfort of their days.

Where do they come from? Are these
the permanent poor - street people who
want their freedom to be street people,
removed from the mundane ritual
of driver's licences and income tax?
Victims of natural calamities or victims
of their own sorry doings? No matter.
Victims are victims, the end the same.
Their presence, their abject begging bowls
are a sharp reminder how we have been
spared, never forced down to our knees.
Some pass in anger, some in sorrow,
some, eyes front, refuse to see at all.
In the end, we all pass by.

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