My Ride Upon the Night Mare

As I lay down and closed my eyes I heard
Outside my open window whinnying--
A sound that's out of place here in the city--
Yes, even when the city is in Texas.

I crept around the bed and glanced outside--
A glance was all it took to transport me
Onto the back of a moon-white mare, black
Eyes absorbing all light into abyss.

I had no need of saddle, bridle, reins
All unprovided--I heard no owl, bird,
Cicada, cricket in the nighttime sing--
I heard no cries of danger or of pity.

And so we rode upon the very nexus
Of life and death and dream--my equine guide
Rode me through prairie Native ghosts who'd flee
Before--not me, but--my companion's track.

From danger, fear--from rhythmic hoof beats, bliss--
I listened, could not hear the faintest strains
Of music luring my mad mare--I miss
The bison filling up the shortgrass plains.

I'm haunted by the past that fills the earth
And fills me up until I pour out time
In present draughts to make a future worth
Our having as we make our complex climb.

This place does not belong to me--this place
Is not unique to me--this moon-white mare
Does not belong to me--she fills the place
That unifies all poets, we the rare.

The charming, cheerless chants of tribes that chose
To live their lives on lolling plains that lay
Between the hills and mountaintops--what grows
Out of the underworld that makes us play?

The mare has masqueraded me--the spirit
World winds in front of me and does not mind
My presence--ignorance and all who fear it
Remain in battle here among the blind.

The plains dissolve to deserts, rainbow stones
And trees of stone, of crystals, shades of brown
More numerous than rarer rainbows, tones
Resounding everywhere in moonlight's gown.

I lift the gown to pleasures of the mind
More numerous than of the flesh--I taste
The musky midnight, melt and then unwind
To find that I won't bind myself, be chaste.

The mare is climbing up the mountainside
And at the peak she leaps--from peak to peak
She takes me to a cooler place that's wide
Enough to hold my mind and all I seek.

At last she lets me down beside a cave
From which emerges a great serpent, heads
More numerous than those who found the grave--
He's everything the past and future dreads.

I know I can't defeat this demon, sword
Or other weapon I don't have--the mare
Transforms into a woman, steps toward
The serpent with her milk-filled bosom bare.

The smallest serpent head strikes out to find
Its fangs embedded in a swollen breast
Where milk and venom mix and, mixing, bind
The serpent's drinking throat to kill the rest.

The venom spreads out to the woman's limbs
And roots her to the rocky mountain ground,
Transforming her into a blooming tree
Whose flowers open, white, with subtle sound.

This sound resounds within my inner ear
And through this sound I learn to cherish fear
As much as love and friendship we hold dear--
And through all life and strife will truth appear.

I know that's why the mare has brought me here,
To witness transformation, her death bier
Poeticizing to a higher tier
My soul, Cassandra-like, no one will hear.