Mother's Day

On this Mother's Day, I share with you a poem I wrote about getting my mom's palomino mare back to her feet after dental surgery.  We didn't know if she would survive the day, but she lived several more years to age 36.  While I lost my mother almost two years ago now, we will forever be connected through horses. 

A Golden Victory

(in response to Maxine Kumin's "Making the Jam Without You")

We have never made jam -

the complicity of sugar and heat -

but we have heaved a horse

from the earth, preserved gold.

Getting your old yellow mare

back to her feet after

her rotten teeth had been removed,

the anesthesia pulled

through her blood like taffy.

We shouldered all our hopes

and determination

that she would shuffle again

through the purpled alfalfa.

That you would ride her again,

her head tossing,

defying her ancient bones

breathing the same air

as the smoky new colt.

Twice she folded

back to the ground,

and we sweated and held back

our wails of defeat, did not hunch.

We yelled at her –

(you had told me never

to yell around the horses)

we crawled almost under her –

our feet slipping on the lawn.

Finally, with one last effort,

we became human pillars -

and grass-stained, panting,

the three of us stood still

under the summer sun.

Mama and Taffy, 1993