Robert Penn Warren

Dead Horse in Field

In the last, far field, half-buried in barberry bushes, red fruited,
The thoroughbred lies dead, left foreleg shattered below knee,
A 30.06 in heart. In distance,
I see the gorged crows rise ragged in wind. The day after death
I went for farewell, and the eyes were already gone-
That the work of beneficent crows. Eyes gone,
The two-year-old could, of course, more readily see
Down the track of pure and eternal darkness.

I week later, I didn't get close. The sweet stink
Had begun. That damned wagon-mudhole, hidden
By leaves as we galloped-I found it.
Spat on it. Just as a child would.
Next day the buzzards. How beautiful in air,
Carving the slow and concentric downward pattern of vortex, glint
On wings. From the house, now with glasses, I see
The squabbles and pushing, the waggle of wattle-red heads.

At evening I watch the buzzards, the crows,
Arise. They swing black in Nature's flow and perfection
Against the sad carmine of sunset.
Forgiveness is not indicated. They are
What they are.

How long before I go back to find
An intricate piece of fake modern sculpture,
White now by weather and sun, assuming in stasis
New beauty. Then,
Say two years after that, the green twine of vine,
Each leaf heart-shaped, soft as velvet,
Or a baby's kiss, beginning
Its benediction.

It thinks it is God.