The Lead

In the mid-day hour, sunlight filtered through windows, 

small ones, set high, admitting more dust than warmth 

into the quiet shedrow of stalls,

as a rider with it in hand raised the stall-latch 

to her dozing chestnut, back leg cocked, 

his head hanging low, dreaming of her.

But that was some while ago,

and her leather lead has stiffened,

its suppleness lost through the years

like the joints of the old chestnut, now done with jumping.

But at the last, before college, she’d thought to store

the lead, oiled, in the bottom of her equipment trunk 

in case some other rider might one day need to lead 

some other chestnut. And, searching a left-behind trunk

for, what? a softer dandy brush, a kinder snaffle 

for her grey’s soft mouth, another girl picked out the lead, 

needing one, knowing the cracks in its leather 

would require oil and rubbing, but glad to have it.

It went to shows with her and her grey, in her own trunk, 

though one day on the show grounds it somehow got dropped, lost,  

left in the dirt that turned to mud in the afternoon deluge,

just as we will all get left behind one day, in dust or dirt or mud,

and have to make our way without everything we need.