~CATHERINE STAPLES~

HACKING OUT

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Just yesterday—four chipped bits of china,
brighter blue than willow; in great arcs
they sifted upward and under their wings
an astonishing umber printed the air.
It was wheel and feint while we trotted along
in long grass, in the loose swing of work
and pleasure on a twenty degree day, horses
steaming breaths, fingers loosening from knots—
when another unfixed bit of blue shot forth.
I knew then for certain you were stealing a look
at the long waited for child, the one
you called thrush-in-the-hawthorn.
Surely you slipped home again, paused
in the smooth light of the wild pear
to watch—chestnut hair, sapling thin
her long fingers closing
on the pony's mutinous thought,
give and take, steady leg, half-halt
to a softening hand. Her fear sequestered,
disciplined with the alert work of hacking out
in all weather, her first season following hounds,
heads up in the flying wood, the heart high
blur and burn of tree trunks
and leapt logs into the fierce joy
of the lonely wood and the heart beating hard.

 

© by Catherine Staples