Ponies

For James Wright

There were three, a marmalade of ponies,
just in the field, feeding on grass—
one roan, one buckskin, and a chestnut.

I put my arms on the fence to wait
and watched them, without a carrot
or motive for being there.

In a while they came gladly to the fence, a ways
from where I stood, and hung their long, lovely heads
over the wire barrier and looked at me.

I was waiting for a friend who was late.
There was a café up the road with good food.
I had walked from the motel, she was meeting me

here, by the fence with the ponies in the field,
who had joined me, looking for something
with their heads still over the fence, maybe a carrot

or a human hand rubbing them in a kindly way,
their soft muzzles, the hard, flat nasal bone, their mouths
now nibbling my palm for something beyond their field.

I’m not sure, I was outside a town in Montana,
a day in early fall, summer still warm on the ponies’ hides.
I’m from the city, the air here had good vegetal in it,

with the essence of ponies. The darkness of their eyes,
the soft ears like furred flags in the currents of air,
their legs pawing the fading, bronzing grass.

The three were good company, waiting for my friend.
The sky was darkening, there was a slight wind
with the scent of damp horse in the air.

She was late, the day was expiring, the evening
coming on. Another scent floated, whitebark pine,
loved by Clark’s nutcrackers, grizzlies, and red squirrels.

Could this trio of ponies be off soon, into whatever
the setting sun might hold for the yet to come?
What we call, when we can think of nothing else, the future.

This poem appears in the May 2024 print edition.