The Pony 

 

When I was a young woman

visiting my brother in an upstate valley

where I was a stranger in the rural cold,

I stepped outside and saw a farmer’s field

Snow stretched to the treeline and in 

the great, black sky the moon rose slowly: 

thin, white, sliced like a broken pearl

Do you live here now? I asked

my brother, and he said, Yes

 

My brother loves his wife, his child, 

the bounty of the world. I don’t understand,

but he reminds me that once, we lived

at the edge of a park carved out of fields 

and swamps by the municipal authorities

It was a district of Jews, of 

secrets and unspeakable distress

 

And yet, even we had a father once, 

And a mother. The father reclined as in 

the Passover story; he listened to the radio

in solitude. Down the street there was

a cemetery often visited by swans

The mother died. In my mind, she is always

walking away, swinging her purse

but I don’t know if that is true or not

 

Can you see me at my desk now,

writing all this down? I hope so

I hope that as time grinds on

goldenrod still appears along the road

and that berries still ripen on the vine

Tell me that is true. Tell me

that there is, indeed, a road

 

In that field, there was a pony 

standing alone in the snow

The farmer came and coaxed him 

into the barn so he would be safe 

from the treacherous night

 

My God, my God,

this is all an enigma

An unopened letter

a message that next time

I dare not miss