REPORT

On the left wing and as the last

there stand shall I,

and what I’ll plead for, none of my comrades

will guess, or why –

and heels together, toes apart I’ll take

my post for you, odd vision, for your sake

bear witness, testify.

I report, my captain,

a dream to me revealed,

it was war and I lay there

shot, on the battlefield;

and right there next to me lay, fallen, by my side,

your horse, our deaths were set to coincide,

so God had willed.

It was approaching morn, the moon was red,

your horse his head did pound,

and oddly enough, like I,

he had a belly wound,

and in his eyes I felt a chilling grief,

someone bewildered, asking for relief,

like wringing hands, I found.

The meadows round and clover redolent

and blooming cress –

and he… a horse… what had he done?

his guts a mess,

someone had sat on him, and sits no more

and eyes so plead to know, to know implore

and thirst, without redress…

Oh, his dry throat… If only he could neigh…

any idea why, why this?:

my golden sun, did he not love you nigh –

why forsake him… like this?

why will that horseshoe never ring again,

why are legs weighed with lead, the sky bloodstained –

ho, spin, world, spin, amiss…

I report, my captain,

it was a dream of dread,

that beast’s eyes, they cried out

bulging out of its head,

they shouted at me, could I please explain,

why were we lying there, gut-torn, in pain –

what was I to have said…?

I report, my captain,

I’ll say this, then be done:

well, a man gladly goes, his duty does,

when his lord says so, faces death for his own –

but spare the horses, I beg a thousand-fold,

that beast asks dreadfully, beseeching to be told

why it may not live on…