July 2016
Dick Allen
rallen285@earthlink.net
rallen285@earthlink.net
Influenced by the example of Donald Hall, in 2001 I took early retirement from a college teaching endowed chair in order to write poems virtually full time, drive Hondas around America, study Zen, listen to bluegrass, and search for the nation’s best Chinese buffet. My new poetry collection, Zen Master Poems, will be published by Wisdom, Inc., in Summer, 2016 http://zenpoemszenphotosdickallen.net
Then
What came through the fields was the white horse
galloping toward us:
a white horse with red eyes,
snarls of black flies
swirling about it. What came
through the fields had blood on its mane
and blood on its forelocks. We stood
watching it come. We said prayers
that it might swerve. We put our hands to our ears
to block out its whinnying.
We did everything
but run. A coven of sparrows rose
from the grass and settled again. Across
the fields lay the broken swath
of weeds its slashing hooves left
bowed in their wake. No god
to protect us! No road
of words we might take—the white horse
galloping across the fields toward us.
Then
What came through the fields was the white horse
galloping toward us:
a white horse with red eyes,
snarls of black flies
swirling about it. What came
through the fields had blood on its mane
and blood on its forelocks. We stood
watching it come. We said prayers
that it might swerve. We put our hands to our ears
to block out its whinnying.
We did everything
but run. A coven of sparrows rose
from the grass and settled again. Across
the fields lay the broken swath
of weeds its slashing hooves left
bowed in their wake. No god
to protect us! No road
of words we might take—the white horse
galloping across the fields toward us.
-from The Day Before: New Poems
©2016 Dick Allen
©2016 Dick Allen