My Father's Poems: May 29, 2022

Daily Diary, Day 637:

HORSE DOWN….1928

1

clipping and clopping
clopping
and
stopping
silent

starting
and clipping and clopping
house
to
house

standing gentle
safe
and friendly
soft
and prickly
mouth
atremble for a
hand
of summer grass

every summer
morning

early
city cowboy
COUNTRY FRESH
WE DELIVER
door to door

2

from my winter hill
I heard the frantic scrambling hoofs
and ringing chains
saw the slewing wagon crash the curb
sickened
as the massive thrashing body
crashed
to the icy road
ran slipping
sliding childlike frightened
to be there

heaving
pulsing
still he lay
steaming
in the zero air

wrenching arching then
his head and neck
in straining rocking surges
knobby legs and horseshoe hoofs
fighting
to find purchase
on the slick hard ice

crashing
again
to earth

3

standing close
in unbelieving awe
beside familiar size and power
stricken
his world and mine
thrown wildly down
my urgent fear then cruelly pricked
by whispered
wisdom
of the older boys
“if his leg gets broke
they have to shoot him”

summer and
winter
morning

early
city
cowboy
clipping and clopping
door to door

--Joseph Locke

I don't know that I've shared this poem before, because of its melancholy subject, but it is one of my favorites. The date puts the memory from when my father was 7, living in Pittsburgh PA.

I was reminded of it this week as I wrote my historical tidbits post about Victorian pets and ran across the article about the formation of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.