The Heart of the Hollow

Where are you going, so far behind the horse?
The line is a thief
and the tail of the comet is dusted with fright.

Give us a beginning, at the least, and 
don’t deny the void below and beyond
like the noxious weed that sprouts, denying beauty.
Emptiness at the heart of the hollow,
waster of time and gutter of hopes, quaking earth a quagmire.
Sink and rise, sucking each leg from the muck as you go.
You reach the horse and its eyes show white, 
it cannot make itself move. 
And the horse seems a freak before you
gradation of dapple on rose grey on roan,
mud upon mud. You touch its heaving ribs.
Fear makes it a mass of muscle and flesh 
barely animal, as you feel barely human in this foul bog.
Bubbles rise, swell and pop, like festers 
and you soldier on 
through terrain that reeks of the spreading weed.

You win the rise but what have you won? You don’t recognize
the vast stables, the milking parlour with its thousand cattle,
the garden with fountain and sun dial, benches arrayed
in a gazebo where the gracious abbess 
offers exotic fruit from a basket, and effervescent drink.  
You hesitate between kumquat, cherimoya,
choose. She nods and her women appear 
a procession of tall cowled figures 
grey in plain-spun wool or silk. 

They improvise song
and the notes climb to the echo-shelf, 
wait there for you, listening for the clang
of shod hooves on rocky path.

© Frances Boyle