Willow Horses

In ‘Comments’ Vi Wrote: “Your tree was a rocket ship, mine was a beautiful white horse who with mane and tail flying took me to the farthest corners of the earth.”

Do you know this poem by May Swenson, Vi? It is one of my most favorite poems in the world. I used to ‘ride’ willow horses, in exactly this same way . . . incidently, in nearly the same place, as May Swenson came from my home town. ‘Centaur’ is followed by a poem I wrote about May, when I read that the University from which we both graduated was offering a poetry award in her name. The ‘requirements’ were worded so pompously and pretentiously that they nearly gagged me. I wrote a poem, but I didn’t enter their contest.

The Centaur


by May Swenson (1919 - 1989)

The summer that I was ten --
Can it be there was only one
summer that I was ten?

It must have been a long one then --
each day I'd go out to choose
a fresh horse from my stable

which was a willow grove
down by the old canal.
I'd go on my two bare feet.

But when, with my brother's jack-knife,
I had cut me a long limber horse
with a good thick knob for a head,

and peeled him slick and clean
except a few leaves for the tail,
and cinched my brother's belt

around his head for a rein,
I'd straddle and canter him fast
up the grass bank to the path,

trot along in the lovely dust
that talcumed over his hoofs,
hiding my toes, and turning

his feet to swift half-moons.
The willow knob with the strap
jouncing between my thighs

was the pommel and yet the poll
of my nickering pony's head.
My head and my neck were mine,

yet they were shaped like a horse.
My hair flopped to the side
like the mane of a horse in the wind.

My forelock swung in my eyes,
my neck arched and I snorted.
I shied and skittered and reared,

stopped and raised my knees,
pawed at the ground and quivered.
My teeth bared as we wheeled

and swished through the dust again.
I was the horse and the rider,
and the leather I slapped to his rump

spanked my own behind.
Doubled, my two hoofs beat
a gallop along the bank,

the wind twanged in my mane,
my mouth squared to the bit.
And yet I sat on my steed

quiet, negligent riding,
my toes standing the stirrups,
my thighs hugging his ribs.

At a walk we drew up to the porch.
I tethered him to a paling.
Dismounting, I smoothed my skirt

and entered the dusky hall.
My feet on the clean linoleum
left ghostly toes in the hall.

Where have you been? said my mother.
Been riding, I said from the sink,
and filled me a glass of water.

What's that in your pocket? she said.
Just my knife. It weighted my pocket
and stretched my dress awry.

Go tie back your hair, said my mother,
and Why Is your mouth all green?
Rob Roy, he pulled some clover
as we crossed the field, I told her.



A Certain Light Over Cache Valley
(Not To Be Entered in The May Swenson Poetry Award Competition)


They would never give me your award
This prize established with such sober gravity
Amid the quasi hallowed halls of learning
Where we both trod
Here they have set you up in sacred, sacrosanct sequestration
And honor your name with worshipful lowered voices
Because in your life time you achieved
That masterstroke which can only be breathed in reverent whispers
“Publication!”

And so, lucky you, you have, in death, been glorified
And are now ‘Intellectual’ ‘Sophisticate’ ‘Lesbian’
‘Ground Breaking’ ‘Innovative’“Provocative’
‘Insouciant’ and ‘Vital’
These are their words

Were you able to be so insouciant, I wonder
When you were eighteen
A square peg that would in no way fit into any of their round holes?
I know enough to know with surety
That you were not treated in life
With whispers of respect and awe
For either your intellect or your lesbianism
In this place that now proffers
An award in your name and declares you
A “Provocative Vital Force”
In death

And were I to bring to this most serious literary panel
The fluff of clouds that flow from my pen
I would probably earn no more than a
Sniff of derision as they were swept from the table
The audacity to have submitted such frivolity to a
Competition distinguished by such high literary standards!
Were not those standards quite clearly stated after all?

But May, We galloped our willow horses in the same talcum dust
Down the same long lanes, next to the same canal

We have seen the same light
Break like a river of ice
Over the same valley
We have recognized
This certain slant of light
Held it in our eyes
In a way that perhaps no one else
On earth
Has ever done

I can read it in your words, you could have read it in mine

But no one will ever hold these two pictures up, side by side
And comprehend this identical wash of luminosity
Like double wings of diamond over the Wasatch hills

They will never know how much we have in common
How close some thoughts and visions come

For they have painted an ice perfect portrait of you
That I with my dusty toes
Would never try
To touch


Edwina Peterson Cross
©May 2003