heavy in the saddle

I feel you
under my sit-bones
and your long
vertebral muscles shift
and carry
shift and
carry
patient strong

moving my hips along
with the rolling rhythm
of your horizontal song
shifting gently up and
down and side to
side
and forward
but not straight
never straight as arrows

more like drunken sparrows

loosen
I think
loosen those hips
let me roll gently
and heavy in the saddle

feeling in my pelvis weight
of footfalls clipping pasterns
no, not quite
but you track into your
so lucky half moon
prints thu-thud
thu-thud
thu-thud

with energy
and a tucked-in barrel
left then right

It is a quiet discipline of
syllables on sand
a 4 beat
heartbeat
hoofbeat
thumping
traveling up my own long backbone
helping with my
sense of rolling
spiraling clefs and keys
and clouds and grass and silence
graced
with tiny notes from meadowlarks’
imperious demands

you’re not so much a forward pull
as softness traveling slow
and in those many planes
that blended
seem to balance into

flow
make a twosome into
tune
make percussion into
peace
make a steady opposition
of diagonals
release