And Who Is To Say It Is Useless

Riding Out at Evening

At dusk, every thing blurs and softens..

from here out over the long valley,

the fields and hills roll up

the first slight sheets of evening,

as, over the next hour,

heavier, darker ones will follow. 

Quieted roads, predictable deer

browsing in a neighbor’s field, another’s

herd of heifers, the kitchen lights

starting in many windows.  On horseback

I take it in, neither visitor

nor intruder, but kin passing , closer

and closer to night, its cold streams

rising in the sugarbush and  hollow. 

Half-aloud, I say to the horse,

or myself, or whoever, let fire not come

to this house, nor that barn,

nor lightning strike that cattle.

Let dogs not gain the gravid doe, let the lights

of the rooms convey what they seem to. 

And who is to say it is useless

or foolish to ride out in the falling light

alone, wishing, or praying,

for particular good to particular beings

on one small road in a huge world?

The horse bears me along, like grace, 

making me better than what I am,

and what I think or say or see

is whole in these moments, is neither

small nor broken.  For up, out of

the inscrutable earth, have come my body

and the separate body of the mare:

flawed and aching and wronged.  Who then

is better made to say be well, be glad, 

or who to long that we, as one,

might course over the entire valley.

over all valleys, as a bird in a great embrace

of flight, who presses against her breast,

in grief and tenderness,

the whole weeping body of the world?

~ Linda McCarriston