To Fish For Living Things

I was young once, and not briefly,
When those lyric Muses tweaked me.
A golden aspen day now long ago,
When time drifted on, if oh so slow.

We’d pack-tripped into the wild,
Camping under our Great Chinese Wall
When Pegasus kicked me
That wolven wilderness Fall.

Kicked as I darted to retrieve my water shoes.
White shoes tucked under Pegasus’ wings.
Canvas shoes to wade the Hippocrene stream
To fish for living things.

I remember the whistle of the stroking hoof—
Thump. Then flutes, Euterpe fluting.
Thalia appears, day goes night…
Next thing, Polyhymnia and I take flight.

The Medusa horse marked me
Teaching me to heed the lives of all those living;
To not move so youthfully fast through time,
To enjoy the spring and summer of being.

I danced with Terpsichore, on fire,
My toes strumming Erato’s lyre.
Melpomene spared me this one time,
And Calliope taught just how horses mime.

The horseshoe scar lies over my beating chest.
My heart lub-dubbing lore…
Clio proclaims my beat is truthful
If not so youthful, anymore.

Today, Urania brightens the hoofprint
Scored upon my breast.
Heartbeats, hoofbeats cantering on…  
Giving time a rest.