Tessa Ransford
Wondrous Child, Wounded Child
Up pony! Off we go on the long life-journey
from east to west like the sun,
bundled together, hoof-beat, heart-beat,
wheels cannot stop nor the pony slow down.
Proud boy, seven years old, holding the reins:
‘Gee up, gee up!’ you shout and already whoop
to the bumps and jolts of the dusty road,
and keeping the pony straight, trit trot,
guided round corners, the tug of the bit
and the huge spoke-wheels creak-creaking.
Five-year-old girl, you fold back into
your mother’s right arm with a puzzled look,
apprehensive: will it cause us harm?
‘Whoa! Whoa!’ a little voice inside cries.
‘Don’t toss me about, I might fall out’.
The sais stands by impassive and stares ahead.
It is all in the hands of fate once
the pony is groomed and harnessed,
the trap cleaned and oiled.
Three in the pony trap, still, in the Nilgri Hills,
blue hills, dream hills, cool hills of India.
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The