//Fire in the heavens, and fire along the hills, and fire made solid
in the flinty stone, thick-mass'd or scatter'd pebble, fire that fills the breathless hour that lives in fire alone//
Fire.
It destroys everything in its path and nearly everything is touched by its scorching flames. Those who have experience fire
have experienced burns, loss and tragedy. There is no other power more wild.(c)
//This valley, long ago the patient bed of floods that carv'd its
antient amplitude//
This stallion alone rivaled fires power, beauty and wild spirit. He was not native to these lands,
but came from Egypt, where the fire stands in the sky and scorches the backs of slaves. Where from the ground rises magnificent
pyramids that rival the awe of skyscrapers. And where ghosts from the past live.(c)
//In stillness of the Egyptian crypt outspread,
endures to drown
in noon-day's tyrant mood//
In each movement of his lithe legs, in each toss of his regal head, and in each step of
his platter-size hooves; that was power. Creamy eyes showed compassion, where others with his strength would care not. Powerful
and kind? He was like an ancient king in faerie tales and stories. (c)
//Behind the veil of burning silence bound,
vast life's innumerous
busy littleness//
Clumsy beasts were other equines compared to him, his buckskin magnificence rising above the rest.
He'd been captured, yes, and branded. The one thing marring his handsome self. A large burned AA on his left hip.
Fire burned in his heart for those who had commited this heinous crime.
(c)
//Is hush'd in vague-conjectured blur of sound
that dulls the
brain with slumbrous weight, unless//
In Egypt he'd been King. Adorned with the most mighty of food, drink and company.
Humans were there only to serve this one, a mighty show horse he was whose back had never been beaten by whips nor toiled
in the soil.
But upon his capture, and trip to America, this was not so. (c)
//Some dazzling puncture let the stridence throng
in the cicada's
torture-point of song//
He knew not how he had escaped, only that he had left in the dark of night and run. He had
run and kept on running. The climate was different here than in Egypt. This Land of Many Trees was cold and dark. He had always
been a wanderer. That had not changed when he came to the Land of Many Trees. (c)
//'O Stallion, of slender light, rise from the dark
to meet the
day in the heavens//
But the way the herds worked here was different. There were no laws to fighting. He had scars
from where stallions had broken what he believed to be a rule. His dark eyes flamed as he thought of the shame. Flamed, as
though he alone was the tip of the fire.
-done-
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