Homage to Becoming a Horse
I read this really great poem in a magazine.
The imagery was palpable, tactile, touchable.
It was about this person who connected so closely
with a horse that he became, not just any
horse, but that horse — body parts
on body parts.
He leaned into the horse; eyes and face
and heart and thumbs and everything else
including his words became the horse; the
horse’s eyes, face, heart and hooves and
finally the horse’s slow moving tongue
became his words.
I tried that with my 110 year old Chocolate
Lab with eyes and face and heart and
thumbs and everything else including my
words. I hugged him closely while he labored
to breathe and then I began to sob
with anticipatory grief.
I couldn’t become Boomer as I had wanted.
I could only love him from distances of
universes so far away from who I am and
who he is, and yet, in the utter intimacy of a
man and the dog who had shown him the gift
of unconditional love.
Body parts became his words with
anticipatory grief
of unconditional love.
I do hope Boomer is well and we will see him again on your next trip to Trailway.
Jess
Moving and precise comment on the universal response to grief of a loved one! It fits my own response to Freckles the Dachshund and his collapsed spine a few years ago and my Grandmother Berbiglia sixty years ago as I sat by her bedside