What Time Ran Over

WHAT TIME RAN OVER
January 6, 2004


When time stampeded down,
did you see what it trod over?
I saw lanky legs that bound
and could fly like flames through clover.

I saw flowing mane and tail
and a pair of brown eyes caring,
but no trace or thought of bale.
Where the clock runs they were staring.

From my seat upon the saddle,
I saw every detail clearly;
every muscle cloaked in raddle,*
every curve that I loved dearly;

I could hear the earth rejoice
between the pebbles and the hoof,
and I could swear I heard her voice,
I have a thrumming heart for proof.

I could almost reach my hand out
and touch the soft, sweet trembling hide
as it takes the familiar route
the way the mare, the wind, would ride

every single Saturday morn.
I wonder why I never feared
as I saw behind the horn,
Time, the reaper, as it neared.

Strong and healthy long-length strides
gallop rhythms on the trail
while a barred owl swoops and glides
as over the ground she’d sail.

Will you ever know again
all the secrets that were shared so?
in the way that it had been
when time and fate had us paired so?

There, the river running low,
as you trot from the pine forest,
covered now in deep white snow,
every bush a frozen florist.

Round the bend and down the straight,
always moving, you keep going
through the air strip, to the gate
where the trees have apples growing.

Well, the hands of time won’t stop;
they never did, they never will
for a special red mare’s clop
and a heart that feels the thrill.

But I can pause and remember
what I knew so long ago
when four hooves were like an ember
that made bits and bridles glow.

And the rider?-- I’m the one
who sat upon that special mount
under life’s midsummer sun
beneath the season’s gushing fount.

She is gone, but still I see
fire blazing through the clover
where she flew away; to me
this is what time has run over.



*raddle: red