TO THE HILLSDays when the wind was up, I rode my sorrelFast through the pasture as he could go, Up to the hills, meadow and mountain, Hawk-slanting silence, the chant of crows. Through belly-high grass at the run, I would push him. Thirty years old, both, panting for time. Shod hooves struck sparks. The bit chinked and jingled; We brushed at the canter past stands of pine, Gasped in the thin air, resin’s sweet tingle- - Branches of pine needles slapped and stung And crows debated their dull style. I kicked the horse higher, obdurate as pride, ’Til sheer rock rose, reared, stopped the ride. Below, the plain shimmered, heaved, drifted, Cloudshadow rolled vast mile by mile. Conies shrieked and grew suddenly quiet. Hawks hissed and jabbered in the ragged sky, A woman scolding, a man’s sour reply. On the gathered horizon, prairie heat Bred thunder over the mesas That take what will come. Chill, then surge. The air sundered. Black wind beat the ledge and seized my thighs. The old horse, my red horse, shivered and shied - - Ice marbles caromed out of sky Battered. Wet white shocked his hide. Wedged in the granite, sulphurstruck, the world cracking, I tented the slicker for his head and mine. Kansas Quarterly; Spikenard Return to Index of Jeannette Barnes poems
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