End of Everything
I return to the white horse in the meadow.
I return with apples from the nearby apple tree.
We each have our side of the sun-bleached rail fence.
I have returned here a thousand times
with braeburns, golden delicious, fujis, and galas—
all from the same tree, all for different poems.
The white horse is always there
even though it is twenty years on.
My time is not linear. It is moments repeated.
Or stuck. Or so beloved I cannot help but go back in time.
Usually the journey is a subtle shift,
but sometimes it is an emotional jolt.
But each time I return the horse is in the pasture.
White against the grayed fence wood.
It arrives at the gate three steps before I do
and leans out toward my full hands.
A scar on my hand in the shape of teeth
testifies to my lesson on how to hold an apple properly.
The pasture, which earlier I called a meadow,
has a tree that casts shade to house the horse
when I first arrive up the hill from these encounters.
It is that tree and its shade I will rest under
with the white horse until the end of everything.
copyright © 2018 Kenneth P. Gurney
Umflop 