Today, I see, your glance is especially sad
And your arms, embracing your knees, especially thin.
Listen: far, far away on the Lake of Chad
Wanders a gentle giraffe.
He is endowed with slender grace and bliss,
And his hide adorned with a magical design
Which the moonlight alone, shattering and rocking
On the wide wet of the lake, dares to rival.
From afar he resembles the colored sails of a ship,
And his gait is smooth as the joyful flight of a bird.
I know that the earth will witness many wonders,
When, at sunset, he hides in a marble grotto.
I could tell merry tales of mysterious lands
Of a black maiden, a young chief’s passion,
But you have too long inhaled the heavy mist,
You will believe in nothing but the rain.
And how can I tell you about a tropical garden,
Slender palms, the scent of inconceivable herbs…
Are you crying? Listen…Far off on the Lake of Chad
Wanders a gentle giraffe.
I am no more than a secretary of the invisible thing
That is dictated to me and a few others.
Secretaries, mutually unknown, we walk the earth
Without much comprehension. Beginning a phrase in the middle
Or ending it with a comma. And how it looks when completed
Is not up to us to inquire, we won’t read it anyway.
-Czeslaw Milosz
A Milosz poem in the original Polish. I like the doodlings that resemble my own “secretarial” scribblings, though I feel I am not as good at taking dictation.
My direct experience with horses was mostly long ago when some of my childhood friends owned them and I rode a few times. My late husband and I might have gone on a ride once, too. 95% of what I know about the animals intellectually I learned just a few months ago, from the Flicka series of books by Mary O’Hara. I’d wanted to read them for more than thirty years, as I saw my children enjoying them one by one. Finally I was in the mood and our well-worn paperback copies were still on the shelf — just the right size, too, for reading in bed at night until my eyes would begin to close.
Mary O’Hara
I’ve never read anything like them; I kept wondering who was O’Hara’s intended audience. I used to think they were young adult novels, but now I realize they aren’t. They feature plot threads of coming-of-age, and the young love between one boy and a girl who also loves horses was very sweet and believable. But the adults’ perspective on their children, and the drama of their marriage, seemed to me to be beyond the scope of what a young person would be interested in.
I was surprised at how much the books were about the animals, the wild horses that are the main business of the Wyoming ranch where the family lives and where the boys are expected to participate in the work and bear serious responsibility to a degree that is rare these days. When I read this ancient poem it took me back to O’Hara’s stories, and especially the intimate knowledge of horse behavior that she seems to have.
In the books, not all of the wild horses that the horse tamers deal with are ultimately harnessed and saddled like the one in Ivy’s drawing, and everyone in the ranch family appreciates and respects their free and spirited friskiness and is careful not to entirely kill it.
THE THRACIAN FILLY
Ah tell me why you turn and fly, My little Thracian filly shy? Why turn askance That cruel glance, And think that such a dunce am I?
O I am blest with ample wit To fix the bridle and the bit, And make thee bend Each turning-end In harness all the course of it.
But now ’tis yet the meadow free And frisking it with merry glee; The master yet Has not been met To mount the car and manage thee.
-Anakreon (582 – 485 BC) Greece Translated by Walter Headlam
They tell me to be a star, shining brightly for everyone to see.
I tell them I am a brick in a wall, not easily spotted.
They tell me to be a written book, everything in life predictable.
I tell them I am blank pages, my life story always changing.
They tell me to be Atlas, holding the weight of the world on my shoulders.
I tell them I am an ant, strong but meager.
They tell me to be a bottle, holding in every emotion.
I tell them I am a door, opening only to those with my key.
Gladsome Lights 