delight

Today was the third consecutive session of the poetry marathon workshop. It's been a challenge with the editing bits I have to complete for other projects this week, but it's all good and will work out somehow. How? I don't know--it's a mystery (remember that oft-repeated line from the movie Shakespeare in Love?). I've included today's poem here, along with this morning's photo. It's a lightly edited version and may go through many drafts before it's really complete.

At Light of Dawn

I woke to the neighbors' dogs barking at the horses.
We'd slept soundly after the west wind stopped blowing,
didn't notice three horses had arrived from a nearby field
led by men with big hats carrying ropes, as they always do.
The white mare, resting in grass, resembled a unicorn in
a silk tapestry, spiral horn not visible in silvery-tinged air.
Her grey-brown filly, white diamond on her nose,
isn't a year old, but almost as tall. I remember the small,
squirming wet body, who stood up unsteadily while
her mother was still dispelling the placenta.
The chestnut mare tried to claim the newborn and was
taken away with much whinnying and head tossing.
It was all doleful and beautiful in its animal wildness
and blood's urge. To messy for refined sensibilities.
It spoke of animal sex and blood and afterbirth. But
it was wild absence. That foal was born on our land
on a June Morning. I said it was a blessing and now
things would turn in our lives, toward the better,
there would be delight, despite everything.