a re-imagining of a poem from last April.
Grace
for Alexine
Not divine, not rare, perhaps unexpected,
not unearnedour brightest courage
shone back at us. She learned to trust
by trusting this horse, hurtling together
over fences or walls or any obstacles.
When Rosie died, when she found
her own knees could not lift her
up from the rough floor, she found
hands, reaching for her. Friends
of Rosie, people who paused at the pasture
nearly every day, people
she’d never suspected now stopping
their cars, saying: I’m sorry, she was
so beautiful, my child loved her.
Grief thrusts a rigid basket
of bricks into our arms. Grace
stretches a stranger’s hand to pluck
some of them, to make bearable
the crippling bulk. Old wives tell
the truest talesa shared load
is lighter, so light it shines,
a spring sun on an old mare,
now blind, who trusted this woman
once, to fly, and always, to find her way back.