Wild Horses – the painting from a poem

Piebald-soul

PIEBALD-SOUL

“It is said in Ceannconn — the Head of the Hound —
the Black and Tans came for my great-grandfather’s horse,
a piebald horse that ate windfall apples from a child’s palm,
who back-burdened their small farm, who cart-pulled
a whole clan the miles to Schull for Sunday mass.

They came for his horse as they came for all others,
with no intent of any speedy return.
Paddy Callaghan, staying gravestone silent, stared
at the horse who reared full height on his back legs,
brandished hooves more deadly than smuggled Fenian guns.

So the Black and Tans went away,
passed the family in their moonlight ransacking.
If Paddy and his piebald came wandering towards
a boreen checkpoint, the makeshift soldiers stood aside
as if he was Lord of West Cork, his family the heirs.

Has his Ceannconn nature passed through our blood,
a piebald-soul that can incite bone-crushing wildness?
Come between me and mine, and we’ll see.”

— WILD HORSES by Denise Blake

from TAKE A DEEP BREATH, Summer Palace Press

Painting by Barrie Maguire