The Same Picture (for Fox)

A poem inspired by my nephew who is a very good poet himself.

I was holding you up to see the horses.
You’d seen big horses before
and you weren’t afraid
to reach out and touch
the velvety softness of his nose.

He was massive,
a Percheron someone said.
Black and tall and muscular,
towering well above us.

He bent down to receive our gifts
of dandelion flowers
and sharp grasses.
And in return allowed us
to smell the dusty sweetness of his skin,
to rub the smoothness of his neck.

You looked into the big,
black mirror of his eye
and exclaimed with so much beauty and wonder,
“He has the same picture of us in his eye.”

There was something so poetic,
so mystical and so wonderful in that pure
and spontaneous exclamation.
It made me realize how much we lose from the time
we’re four years old
as we learn to censor ourselves,
and to be logical and to be rational.
And we forget
that we were born
as poets.