Santa Ynez Valley

Someday the old pony
in the field will fall asleep
and never wake up—careen
and crash on the sod in
the night—knobby knees
and a barrel of ribs and all
that long gray hair and those
eyes of blown glass, and

the clouds will gallop past
like scribbles and etchings
of the silvery moon, all night,
in the wind that caresses
the willow tree that stands
next to the pasture—the one
that’s stood for forty years—
the one that weeps.

MB 2009

Someday the old pony
in the field will fall asleep