Beyond Blossoms - For James Wright [original Version] Poem by Warren Falcon

'... the light breeze moves me to caress...' - James Wright


Old teacher,
consigned
to poems now -
another way
beyond blossoms
of which you
often spoke.

If you were here now I would speak
of horses encountered on a hill
in the south of France, Monthaut,
its ruined church without knees,
sun low over foothills of the Pyrenees -

From shadowed trees downhill
at least 20 of them run to me.
I feel them before they fiercely
appear, hooves tearing dirt
and grass in their ecstatic
ascent of the steep arriving
like excited birds, haunches
quivering, damp from late-summer heat.

Their soft noses push at my hands,
their vulnerable breasts press
hard against barbed wire.
They offer themselves to me,
their long necks extended,
massive heads dipping shyly,
not without some blood.

I think of you now as I did then,
remembering our bellowing lungs
in rich shared air, odors entwined
of earth, of mane, those of sweet
grasses and the binding brier
where they stampede, trembling.

Not poetry here, Old Master,
just reporting.

How it all breaks open
blindly between doldrums,
dark hammock refusing
to be swayed on a bad day.

Something is here you already
know but if there is forgetting on
the other side of the fence
I remind you now.

My hands caress
echoing equine graces.
In their eyes I can see
in that way of all breezes,
finally, where you went.