Song
To hoof it with
The ass, always
In the saddle.
(From Sentences, 1976)
The ass in the saddle is still alive and kicking, though not as exuberantly as in this snapshot; his sidekick of a workhorse sloshing in mud bringing up the rear is sadly no longer with us (no great wonder); the poor, ladened quadruped has also hoofed it for greener pastures: Photo taken during olive harvesting, winter of 1963--when women were women and men beasts.
Pitufo
ReplyDeleteToward evening the burro begins to bray
in his shaded corral, off in the jungle.
Braying for food or braying for love,
who can say? Whenever we see him
up close, he stands dumbly, ears drooped,
while his handler sells us cervezas frescas
from coolers slung over the burro’s back.
We stroke his long face, the grizzled slope
between his thickly-lashed, downcast eyes,
which do not seem to see us . . . blinded
as they are by the relentless dreams
of whatever makes him bray at sundown.
[first published 3 or 4 years ago in The Eleventh Muse; I've lost track of the issue, but it's around here somewhere....]
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This burro still thrives near his old stomping grounds on the east coast of the Yucatán peninsula. Every year we take pictures with him. We age, but he doesn't appear to...
Wonderful hearing that such "beasts" of burden are thriving and if I may say so(tongue in cheek), still braying poetically! Nice work,Joe.
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