The War Horse

This dry night,nothing unusual About the clip,clop,casual

Iron of his shoes as he stamps death Like a mint on the innocent coinage of eath.

I lift the window,watch the ambling feather Of hock and fetlock,loosed from its daily tether

In the tinker camp on the Eniskerry Road, Pass, his breath hissing, his snuffling head

Down. He is gone. No great harm is done. Only a leaf of our laurel hedge is torn -

Of distant interest like a maimed limb, Only a rose which will now never climb

The stone of our house, expendable, a mere Line of defence against him, a volunteer

You might say, only a crocus, its bulbous head Blown from growth,one of the screamless dead.

But we, we are safe, our unformed fear Of fierce commitment gone; why should we care

If a rose, a hedge, a crocus are uprooted Like corpes,remote, crushed, mutilated?

He stumbles on like a rumour of war, huge, Threatening. Neighbours use the subterfuge

Of curtains. He stumbles down our short street Thankfully passing us, I pause, I wait,

Then to breath relief lean on the sill And for a second only my blood is still

With avatism. That rose he smashed frays Ribbonned accross our hedge, recalling days

Of burned countryside, illicit braid: A cause ruined before, a world betrayed.