by SARA LUDLOW HOLMES
I’D HAVE you learn the rider’s stance,
Partly crouch and partly dance;
Your knees a crab, your back a whip
Ready for buck or sudden shy,
Ready to duck a hanging limb,
Ready for puddles blue with sky
Or ditches dim.
Knowing how curb and spur, together,
Gather shambling muscle and bone
For the clean clearing of a hedge
Or pivoting round a stone,
You’ll watch the flick of your horse’s ears,
Reading the road ahead of his fears;
Talking him through the culvert’s dark,
Walking him past the crazy bark
Of the dog that leaps from the fiddler’s shack.
When sumac clots the quarry ledge,
When the rope-walk whistle is still,
You’ll be riding the windy ridge
With Shakespeare-song in your pocket,
River and hoof-beat hung in the heart,
The county lore for a locket.
Wary of burrow, of lockjaw barb
Acreep in a careless, rusty vine,
You’ll be threading stump and furrow,
Scattering puffballs, breathing wine;
Your body, keeper of a ring,
Your viking head for spirit king,
Chance, your sturdy underling.