She has a connection with horses that is difficult to understand or explain. I’ve met people like this over the years, including my friend Del. Maybe they’re remembering something from a previous existence? Following this train of thought, I found myself writing this poem, my 12th villanelle.
Transmigrant Memory
For Bonnie
Horses race upon the fields; thunder rolls within the earth,
Where laughing neighs are echoed up the canyons to the peaks;
Lightning flashes in her eyes, dark eyes full of silent mirth.
She storms amid the thronging herd; all the valley holds its breath,
Where jays watch from the aspens, ravens from the elder oaks;
Horses race upon the fields; thunder rolls within the earth.
Billowed sepia-colored mane whips across her chestnut cloth
And dances in the ether, blown in long unfurling arcs;
Lightning flashes in her eyes, dark eyes full of silent mirth.
Each passing nimbus rains a mist, morphing like some giant wraith,
And shadows cast below them briefly dim the verdant brooks;
Horses race upon the fields; thunder rolls within the earth.
Feelings flood her human heart; karma wrought a human path;
Where deep within her nature something equine rears and strikes,
Lightning flashes in her eyes, dark eyes full of silent mirth.
A knowing broods within her soul, welling up to issue forth,
And somehow she remembers; visions fill her heart with aches—
Horses race upon the fields; thunder rolls within the earth;
Lightning flashes in her eyes, dark eyes full of silent mirth.
