Mine Horses Poem by Linda Maria Baros

The house that nursed you told you perhaps,
at night, the story of mine horses:
Mine horses are born and live in the depths;
between gallery walls one finds their house,
their table.
There, they feed on enormous pieces of darkness,
of coal.
They feed themselves gropingly, by lamplight.
And like gallery slaves, they blindly pull coal-trucks.
They carry always and forever,
as long as a horse's life lasts.
They carry light to the surface.

But at the surface, in light, they cannot live,
not even when they are retired, released from the mine.
Because they come into the world blindfolded.
Darkness glued to their foreheads.

And like this they live a little longer, docile.
Breezes and fragrances make them shiver,
in the crumbling coal shed, in the courtyard of the mine.

Blindfolded,
until they descend once more into the depths.

Their house is eternal darkness.