of the horses coming to greet me at the fence
or the sky behind them
telling a good story…
Saying Goodbye
Once upon a time,
four spinning, purposed wheels of a yellow Ryder truck guided a family of five, their dog and three cats towards a place they would never want to leave.
Gone were the smooth, manicured lawns of a golf course nearby;
gone were the country club dinners and fireworks over the 18th hole;
gone was grass so soft you could run barefoot for miles.
They arrived, and the children spent that summer exploring the old dude ranch cabins of their new world
steeped in space and freedom;
they savored the sharp smell of sage in the perfect open air
and the wild mountains and the climbing trees became their home.
They watched storm fronts pass over the rocks and hummocks of Yellowstone,
rode their mountain bikes on forever roads
and counted how many deer they saw in a day, in an hour–in a minute;
they swam in scattered ponds and let the creek calm their teenage temperaments.
In the winter,
When the family couldn’t make it up the road they spent the night in town;
their eyelashes froze together while feeding the horses
and the kids were enthusiastic skiers of the tangled hills surrounding their new refuge.
While their East Coast friends spent the summers of their teenage years
in Martha’s Vineyard
or Cape Cod,
these teenagers lifted bales of hay and rode horses—
they spotted moose and grizzly bear
and let the wind smooth their cheeks and
invigorate their souls.
And when they went away to school, and moved away
and started families of their own,
they were lucky enough to come back to that little piece of heaven—
their home–
so unmistakably and entirely a place of life and beauty
unlike anywhere else.
And they will forever be grateful
for the years they were able to know the land;
for the love that reaches beyond
the farthest glacier of Jim’s Mountain—
beyond those winter-white stars
in that lucid sky
above that familiar, faithful shingled roof
refusing to be forgotten…
Freckled Horse
I’ve known you for a year now
white freckled horse with your limpet mane.
For a year you have been standing there by the fence–
maybe an eternity by that fence,
self-cornered near the barbed filament
always facing the mountains.
Sometimes you shift, I’ve noted;
never subject to the wind.
Yes,
sometimes you shift
and I’d like to know
what moves you to amend your bearing?
To look up without raising those eyes?
Once, I saw you standing that constant way
cool and still in the loafing shed
just because it’s there;
your head still low,
but not for sadness.
And when I pass you on foot
it is the same
save that you lean into me
as if we shared a secret.
Do they know what they have
the proprietors I never see–
the ones who keep your ribs from jutting
and your field from turning grey?
Do they know that there are words in your unsettling composure;
whispers from a tranquility millions seek to match;
wisdom from watching the encoded purpose of colonies colonizing?
Tell me
quiet, unmoving horse:
are they the lives of absented people
scattered about your cerise skin?
Wyoming
is one of the most beautiful places there is…
He Sleeps
He’s right,
it is windy,
but there are no tornadoes.
So when he comes down the stairs with his flashlight
both scared and trying to save me
we consider the dark clouds and determine them benign.
I think about how much taller he is now
than this morning
and so he sleeps next to me;
Miller Moths and their soft thuds building in the swirl of the fan above.
He surprises me with his sticky, limp hand–
the upward palm and curled fingertips which against my better judgement
he neglected to wash just a few hours or a lifetime ago.
And who am I kidding?
The prince of campouts and sprinklers and three or four muddied outfits per day
breathes so perfectly.
There is no better judgement.
respondez s’il vous plait
kindly accept my refusal
to attend your most excellent party
that would no doubt give me great pleasure
any other time
but there is a tempest sky to watch
and a prairie to receive her cyclone fumes
an unrepeated house
leaning into the coils of an eddying rush
and I unrepentant
leaning with it
exacting my brain
to breathe
but I am sure your martinis are lovely
KarenHansonPercy
The Starling
I was raised to hold a gun the right way
and use it
and to eat what I killed.
But I turned off the pot before it sang to a boil,
kept the blender on low so as not to startle;
made the children whisper.
I turned up the towel to stare at you;
dropped the long straw with some earthy concoction
towards your gaping, skyward beak
equally mad at, and in awe of your mother
for her two day absence and her ability to get you this far.
I am sorry and not so sorry for how they circled around you
on the ground as you tried but couldn’t take flight,
and I am sorry but not sorry for the way they hover still
over your shaky torso and wet down
(resulting from the insecure grip of the cat’s mouth).
The cat—who already wolfed down a mouse for supper
perhaps thinking we didn’t notice,
the cat—who once we brought home in the same manner;
cradled in a warm blanket-nest with her tiny mouth receiving temperate drops of milk
from the well-intentioned hoverers…
and when the mower uncovers a den of mice
or a burrowing snake,
when the birds hit the window
or a starling takes flight because we cupped it in our fanatical hands,
I consider the notion
that a rifle in one hand
and a stranded sparrow in the other,
are allowed to reconcile.
KarenHansonPercy
Honey and Fodder and Earth
They are out
the egrets and the herons–
the egrets with their marauding span of wings;
gentle titans of the sky.
The herons with their dull, cobalt ells
long, thin elbow-ells nodding to the undercooked clouds;
they are out
the lowland birds
red and blue and yellow pinafores flitting colors from the wires,
calling songs from their grasses;
they are out
the unguarded horses of daybreak
running fencelines,
giddy with the advent of a meal;
they are out
the father’s morning voice
sighing words to the small boy as they gather eggs,
smelling like honey and fodder and earth…
KarenHansonPercy
Roses
the dog dug up the roses I planted four weeks ago
he dug them up thrice
and scattered their shredded stems around the exactitude of the holes I dug
and when I stuck them back into the ground
I pricked my fingers three times for each tetchy vine I rooted
and forgot to water them for as many days
then the weatherman predicted a freeze
and of course it snowed
and then it froze more nights than the perforations on my fingers
yet today they bloom–
spirited green and bordered red
spreading their fast arms into the garden bed
reaching for the legs of the pergola
as if forgetting their birth and the days that followed
and seeing them now
I cannot help but know
how much like parenting it is
to plant a hearty rose
–KarenHansonPercy
Afternoon Jog
The both of us.