Children Discover an Electric Fence and the Direction of Time
The wire tongue of lightning
hisses listen to the children
growing up before it
in the brown-green muck
gazing in on the horses
and their held-in stampede
the electric voice speaks
lift this knowledge from my palm
like fruit, the language you’re made of
the music the universe sings
enclosing yearning in the muscles
of these mud covered mahogany
beasts galloping small
arcs back and forth
the children hesitant step
closer to the hypnotic buzz
entering into its note
ignoring the mother
her face a snapshot of shock
an expression ancient as the days
as the people who measure them
who chiseled horses like magic
onto rock walls rising out of rivers
where stones roll in the currents
eroding into tiny grains
of silt in an hour glass
turned over into the widening oceans
of the children’s eyes swelling
with the spirit of the first wild horse
the first to believe they could be ridden.
Photo of electric fence courtesy Pixabay.com.
