A CAT, A HORSE AND THE SUN

A cat mistrusts the sun

keeps out of its way

only where sun and shadow meet

it moves

a horse loves the sun

it basks all day

snorts

and beats its hooves

the sun likes horses

but hate cats

that is why it makes hay

and heats tin roofs

Ponies

Carved out of the darkness and far below

In the very last working, a stable

Where the pressure transforms into trees

Pit-props, rosettes into sunflowers,

Into grazing nosebags and the droppings

That smoulder among lumps of coal.

Like the fuzzy star her forelock covers,

A yarn about a townload somewhere

Two fields and no more, in one of them

The convergence of three counties, and her

Standing up to the gaskins in foxgloves,

Agrimony, swaying meadowsweet.

The Horse

 

The horse moves

independently

without reference 

to his load

He has eyes

like a woman and

turns them

about, throws

 back his ears

and is generally

conscious of

the world. Yet

he pulls when

he must and

pulls well, blowing

fog from

his nostrils

like fumes from

the twin

exhausts of a car.

William Carlos Williams