Totally Optional Horse
The Totally Optional Prompt for the week was the poem Horse by Ted Kooser. Starting off there and heading:
Off the Wye River
We ride hard through fields of barley
to the river and the
copper-edged cliffs above.
Horses, loosely tied off
to the nearby white oak,
feed bags liberally supplied,
keep without attention
for our next few hours.
We strip down to skin,
folding our clothes
into the saddle bags
and leap from the cliff
screaming as the cold river-water
parts beneath us.
The splashes echo along the river
in the golden afternoon,
day given over to lazy floating.
The current carries your hair
in a chestnut streak,
but is too slow to carry us.
With the fall of twilight,
the fall of temperatures.
Back into our clothes
and wrapped in a quilt
we eat the sweet breads
and drink the wine
we provisioned ourselves with,
then ride home by starlight;
two wishes apiece
after comets flash.
With satisfaction,
I nudge my horse closer,
hold your hand for the ride,
give my wishes to the world.
Edit: More equine-y goodness here.
Comments
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 12:31 am and is filed under Poem, Poetry, Totally Optional Prompts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
a perfect day. I like the two wishes apiece and that you give yours to the world.
Thanks! -tom
i agree with pauline,, that is the most perfect day imaginable….
A perfect day. A perfect poem!
So what is your opinion on TOP? I got a hint from the post title “Totally Optional Horse.” Is that the creature that would fall off the edge of a flat earth?
I think the totally optional horse is the one you’re not sure you on when you go galloping off the edge of a flat earth. I like TOP. Quite a bit. I think the use of poems gives a good base to jump off the flat earth from. I’ve also moved this comment from the “about tom” page, which I though I had disabled comments, to the post more relevant. -tom
Lovely. Sweet breads means something different to me than I think you intended, though. I really like the last line.
Thank you. Yes, “sweetbread” all one word would not be particularly appetizing, but I didn’t even think of that until I saw your comment. -tom
What a perfect day! I enjoyed reading this
gorgeous poem — a very well crafted.