The Ocracoke Ponies

Jennifer Grotz

No one saw the first ones

swim ashore centuries ago,

nudged by waves into the marsh grasses.

When you look into their faces, there is no trace

of the ship seized with terror, the crashing waves

and the horses’ cries when thrown overboard.

Every afternoon you ride your bicycle to the pasture

to watch the twitch of their manes and ivory tails

unroll a carpet of silence, to see ponies lost in dream.

But it isn’t dream, that place

your mind drifts to, that museum of memory

inventoried in opposition to the present.

You felt it once on a plane,

taking off from a city you didn’t want to leave,

the stranded moment when the plane lifts into the clouds.

That’s not dream, it’s not even sleeping.

It is the nature of sleeping to be unaware.

This was some kind of waiting for the world to come back.