Ioanna Warwick

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At Horseshoe Lake
Eastern Sierra Nevada

Driving toward Horseshoe Lake ,

named for its lucky shape, I thought,

what's the German for horse?

Pferd, snorted my impatient mind.

And I heard--erd,--as in Erde, earth.

Why this fascination with German--

going back to my grandparents at K-Z

Lager Auschwitz-Birkenau--

Now parked near the dead forest,

the white naked bones

of conifers killed

by a poison gas

in the soil, out the corner

of my eye I saw

a horse klip-klop

across the parking lot--

And the horse was

prancing-- delicately lifting

his feet high as if

dancing, klip-klop--

For all the skeleton trees,

and the skull and crossbones

signs, this was not

the Pale Horse of Death--

nor the Red Horse of War,

but Demeter's child, dancing,

gleaming brown--

klip-klop, knocking on the earth.

And in my amazement I knew

I had to forgive it all, though I had

no right to-- not the moment when

my grandmother was told

what it meant, that thick

choking smoke

one could see and smell

already from the train--

But watching the horse

dance out of the dead

forest at Horseshoe Lake ,

under mountain sky,

I had to forgive all

Apocalypse,

past, present, and to come--

I forgave as if it mattered.

Copyright (C) Ioanna Warwick, 2006. All rights reserved.

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