Driving Through the Valley

Nothing all that strange about the scene —
a field, a long-abandoned house and barn,
the wood of both gone dark with mildew
that had dulled a whitish grey with months

of California sun — but the horse beside
the barn was strange in its untethered calm,
eating dry grass with an air so resigned
it seemed familiar, someone I knew —

some woman with a hunger to be martyred
without a word, though it was hard to call
the feeding horse a martyr — but something
close to that in spirit, meek, subdued, expecting

nothing but the next dry blade, head bent —
and then I saw the not-so-distant night — the horse
gone now, miles behind me — the night I took
the water glass he thrust at me like some rough

measure of the tears I'd wept, took it hands
trembling, and bent my head and drank.

Copyright © 2003 Lynne Knight All rights reserved
from Green Mountains Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission