The Spirit That Would Not Be Tamed

When my mother was just a girl

her father bought her and her sisters horses

and all was happy for a time

until Orly became a nuisance.

 

Orly would leap out of the pen

day in and day out

and run the acreage

as a mustang runs the rocky West.

 

My grandfather

a sturdy oak of a man

firmly declared

something must be done.

 

Something was done.

 

The fences climbed

4 then 6 then 8 feet skyward

and still this horse would leap.

 

Orly was tied to a pole

with a short length of rope

so she gnawed through

and still this horse would leap.

 

Finally, a two heavy truck tires

weighted down with logging chains

black rubber and rusty metal 

on this magnificent creature

and still this horse would leap.

 

Orly cleared the fence

But the tires did not.

Cold death looked back

 in her once lively eyes

and the powerful leapers legs

were bent strangely and stiff.

 

My mother told me

never mourn Orly

for she never really died.

That crazy horse was just a vessel

for spirit that would not be tamed.