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Roselle Angwin

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The Thunder Horses

At first light
nearly but not quite first waking
the dawn-pale horses come
carrying the thunderwisdom
down the old red roads
tinderbright spark
in their mistmuffled hooves

You begin the slow ascent
lighter than water
lighter than air
bubbling to the surface
weeds still in your waving hair
talisman fish and fisted seabedshells
from the dark ocean’s belly

You know you had it
then, for one brief moment:
gold from the true alembic.
‘Yes!’ bursting out all around you
before dawn slides to day
and you’re lost

and they’re gone, the fire-flanked
proudskipping horses fleettossed
across these hills and valleys
windwinged against the skyline

like Autumn’s skirtbellydancing
clouds gathered, praying
at the mouth of the crucible,
straining towards the long heavens

and you left emptied, searching
like a blind man
for something you never quite had
and which wasn’t lost -

but the sense of it, the shape
pushing against your eyelids,
throbbing, growing still
as if you were a womb,
you and the day both, incubating

 

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