-- Pale Horse, Rider --

By John Herlihy

Our dreams have their own will,

He remembers this one vividly still.

He did not hear any footsteps near,

Not from hearing stirred the fear.

He looks around, nothing to be seen,

Only an ebony darkness gleaned.

But then the briefest sliver of light,

To sketch a little sparkle into night.

The moon was up, halfmoon at that,

Between two mountain peaks it sat.

Floating in the gap as a child’s boat,

Giving him a feeling he the one remote.

But no child’s boat cast ghostly light,

To weave eerie stillness into the night.

Tracks in the ground inspired pursuit,

The goal there ahead as hanging fruit.

With twilight now gone, the day sold,

Thru mountain slopes a wind now cold.

Was that coyotes snapping at his heels,

Their teeth as incisive as organ peals.

He then saw the whiteness of breath,

As ephemeral as the specter of death.

The dark trace of horse, with rider none,

He could hear, smell it, his senses wrung.

When he spoke to it, its ears did respond,

He stroked its mane, he could do no wrong.

His whispers soothed as he climbed her back,

The horse ambled along the lonely night track.

In the distance on the prairie, a fire burned,

Sparks of a solitary flame by the wind spurned.

The wind freshened and faded without any haste,

No horizon, no sky in that night of desolate waste.

Up closer, he saw a lone tree burning lightning’s fire,

A heraldic tree left behind by a passing storm, afire.

He felt as a pilgrim who had travelled far to be here,

Around him, the eyes of the night critters drawing near.

He left the horse and knelt reverently before the fire,

Warming his hands from the burn of this prickly briar.

Around him, as in a circle, all the varmints of the night,

Reflecting the light of the fire with spooky eyes a-fright.

Small desert owls crouched silently, stood foot to foot,

Hairy spiders and bearded lizards, mouths black as soot.

Little desert basilisks that jet blood from their eyes,

The small sand vipers, as seemly gods, utter eerie cries.

The torchlight of the night fire reflects a thousand eyes,

Our dreams send forth images of a thousand myriad lies.

In the sparkling ring of light, the stars retreat into the dark,

Taking with them our spent dreams, each a solitary spark.

- - - - - -

(c) John Herlihy 14 October 2018