Reunite

The sledgehammer struck without warning or care
Slamming my heart with shock and despair.
Past half-eaten hay and a violated gate
Stared a void that once cradled my chestnut soulmate.

He fearfully foretold what none of us could see
That in the early haze she would take him from me.
Never before had I a connection so deep
Nor a loss, a fall, so severe and jaggedly steep.

Unanswered grasped my letter and frantic calls
Raw and bleak stood his forlorn, empty stall.
For three tortured months tears ruled, then waned
As bruised living trudged on and healing I feigned.

Then in the chills of December I felt his heart
Silently crying to me from dawn to dark.
With fear draped in hope I reached out once more
This time, miraculously, her steely grip tore.

So willingly into the trailer he strode
Like a war-torn soldier, he was going home.
With four prancing feet and two eyes alight
He knew, in the flesh, we would soon reunite.

Tearfully trembling and soaring with vivid joy
I welcomed him home, my cherished big red boy.
It was over, our severed life, with its grievous toll
We belong, this horse and I, together one, whole.

Jane Sanders 1/30/05