On Horses (And Other Tragically Breakable Things) Poem by Christine Austin Cole

[In the spirit of Sylvia Plath and with all the respect that I can possibly muster, I offer this... as just another horse poem]



The whisperer knows the secret of shame
Whether by cunning or whip, the final
Breaking’s the same
When a heart is held captive, there enslaved
The soul it belongs to cannot be saved.

The ruthless, perhaps seeming gentle of hand,
Stalk the remaining few beasts
Still roaming the land,
Lassoing their freedom and making a claim
Branding the creatures, declaring them tame.

But, there’s a difference between those
That were born to be free and those in
The barns of captivity,
Where souls are broken before their birth -
A flaw in design or product of hurt.

Broken is broken, once a soul has been reigned
But, it is by its own choice that
a wild heart remains
The wildest of creatures, will break from the hold
While the rest are corralled, saddled or sold.

Future generations will bear the final result
In the foaling of barned fillies or
Free roaming colts
The souls that were broken will ever be so
And the ones as yet wild, nobody knows.