that I had learnt nothing about the animals,

and less about the fence.

 

I have no strainer for the wire, I have no wire.

Just white electric-fence tape, disconnected,

a single strand to draw the line

the horses usually choose to stay inside.

 

The bridles, cracked and worn, hang loose

from posts that will rot in three wet years.

 

 

 

The horses are happy where the food is.

They have a clean creek, hills to run free.

Mother and son, they stand muzzle to rump,

let saplings snap in the violent wind.

 

Grass I picked them cut my fingers,

no good now for the cavalry, my sword hand

 

for the days after they get sugar cubes.

 

 

 

I believe Topaz understands English,

and she believes humans can only see ahead.

 

I sing them songs to the beat of the hoof.

I sing for all the lucky horses with hills to roam,

with bareback riders, almost lovers,

going at their own pace, hey, slow down Topaz!

 

I sing for all the horses in confinement,

who died in war, whose riders were ignorant,

whose riders made impolite assumptions,

who beat and swore at them in terror.

 

I worry about my bones, I need them

 

another month on the floor. I worry Jim

knows more than he is letting on

 

and when the fall comes it is quick and easy,

and my daughter almost topples laughing, and

I laugh too, so that no-one says I have learnt nothing

as we ride in silence through the mountains

 

in the creaking leather saddles, folk-singing

in my head, to the hoof-beats. The horses like that,

and so long as we go where they want to go,

we all get along at a trot.