Horse suit costume routine I know,
Show and tell at the ranch, with the two
Horse brains on display, each unaware
Of what the other is doing, one side Stoic
Assessing threat, counting grain, the other
Equicurious why there are so many here,
Is this some kind of intervention?
In fact it is, of the most Sunday picnic sociable
Kind, the people of my life slouched down in love
To spend their allotted God time under oaks
Where sparrows and hawks watch over.
And it was all for Brio, who has picked up our
Collective pain like he'd picked up on the flu
From a bug. His eyes betray his deadpan mein,
The horse who can no longer be spooked.
He can't bear his pain anymore, so doesn't care
If he shows it, one allocated wince at a time,
And all because, the LAPD horse whisperer claims,
The prey made a deal with its pre-dator, the human,
Who trip-wired him anyway, without meaning to
Of course, we just don't speak the same language,
That is, we don't understand what they actually say
And we believe our force is what makes them behave
When it is our pain we try to punish out of them.
We don't notice, when he stamps on the fence, how much
Discomfort liberates, so any Western Jesus shaman with a hat
In the vicinity could feel it ring through the pipes.
But, true to form, even in pain, Brio needs an audience,
A team as big as the funeral chuck wagon on the way in,
For his healing, and him so hurt inside he isn't upset
How we don't realize we are the ones to be healed.
It was his set-up, to get us here, to be together at last,
The people who like to talk about themselves with
The people who can bear it most gracefully. We make sure
He looks at us from both sides, the self and the other,
That dance that makes reality coalesce. What exists
Except as it can be shared? Even the nasturtium
Seems a radiance from some other world without
The memory of planting it together, to make it undeniable,
The incessant doubling, birds talking to themselves
Inside the trees, as if predation is still news to them
And the only thing that matters is that they are heard,
What the universe does with that does not disturb.
We moved up slowly to let Brio take our focus, to show us
Something besides a trick, something that our side
Could never expect, never being prepared, or made aware
Of how each moment we were trained
To never transcend the fear. And we stand there,
At different distances from him, and feel our primal pain
Rest within our knowing, know how effortless it goes
Once let in, once we feel it is the one gutting, the same
Original wound, that we are less than a God -- though we
Can always choose again to be the center, which now is Brio's
Face, which twins us, makes us pause, how quietly he moves
Our viscera -- and we never even know. But some of it
Will be talked of, some will be understood, and we will come
Out of it a little more confident, to be oneself, for a bit, and
Confidence is the new coherence, the stretch goal to entrain
More coherence -- our beat they call it the heart.
