THE GRASS

Thick and tall after the May rain
it combed acres of glittering silence
overlapping myriads of margins,
our horses’ hooves were shuffling in its rustling
when your mare was scared by a pheasant in the deep,
shifted aside and bucked, you slid down slowly
caressing her flank, fell and disappeared
in the sea of green;
hearing wings still rustling somewhere
my horse galloped back on the path
skidding among the trees, then stopped in less
than a minute and there was only his breathing
and thick stalks swaying in the breeze.
You emerged eventually, unharmed,
and with soft steps the mare appeared
out of a sunlit gallery of branches,
munching a thick bunch, the length of it
on both sides of her mouth,
the dangling bridles covered in saliva and green
she advanced.
I sensed I could be all that:
jaws grinding the infinite
stalks that I want one day to cover me

and I will eat them and will be eaten up extended
in sleep and startled by wings.