Robert Berry

Sleeping Horses

A star suspends on the rooftree of a big house,
looming bulk of all the history that’s lived here.

The chimneystack, once bronchial
warms no hearths tonight;

the neighbours are out in the bay streets
and I have only a slice of moon for company

till something fossicks leaves near me
then scarpers off to the huffing tread
of human life.

At the field gate by hill top farm
I snuff a lungful of sharp air

admiring the sleeping horses
like steamy frost sculptures

who dream so perpendicular to heaven.