Poem for the Day - Percheron Horses & Carriage

Percheron Horses & Carriage

In Melbourne you move between two sidewalks
as the wind lashes the leaves from trees.

It's time to look at the city beyond its people,
people who will never change their looks. You've

waited for a friend who didn't come & now with
deceptive tenderness you watch two white horses,

nodding at the curb. Feather-plumes float like
breath. You unfurl fingers beneath a horse’s snout.

The coachman stirs. There are city streets to cross,
a handful of reins to snake from a dickey box.

There are lanterns for light, glass for warmth,
a Victorian carriage in gilded trim, top hat and

coattails, a blush of red inside for Cinderella
in ball gown, a Prince fawning beside.

Now autumn crowns gold into leaves, & the carriage
moves on in soft footprints, without clip-clop

on cobblestones, or a sinking into snow. Sitting
across & beside each other, we enter this horse-

drawn world, slowly progressing, as if we might
look back on another time freshly made for this.