VI. FARAWAY FARM, LEXINGTON Poem by Togara Muzanenhamo

1967

Lucy Murphy: 1868 - 1910

The mineral sound of bone rings heavy
with each natural layer of calcium, the wind
sweeping low with Kentucky's prayers.
Paddocks and fields roll out to naked views
where troubled mares slip off to foal
the sun over fresh snow, the moon setting
again, drawing me to think of you.

In simple terms, light is inverted,
the air folded to compact earth -
the world another place, another life
where veined roots are cut blind -
the white thread of matrimonial love
severed from the jasmine bone.

And so the seat is rich, yet the throne
quiet on the template of legendary
worth, a wealth of praise bowing with
the humility of stone. And where
time sits is far divorced from the heart,
the air damp with bone set beneath
dust and snow; the matter of flesh
resolved by the earth, the matter of us
turned again, incomplete by the vogue
of time, my head in your arms forgotten,
the chalkstone dirt stretch heavy with calcium,
the track drumming hard with hoof and applause,
the grief of Kentucky's prayers, the black-foaled
stars giddy where our hearts lay
quiet in the brier-tangled shadows,
the music of unwanted distance grating loud
with what can only be
the memory of an intimate age.