So You've Come

Before the sea
a horse

was standing.

It was a sea
I had seen long ago.

And yet

I did not know
where

to begin painting.

I
stood before the horse.

“So you've come.”

Whether the horse said it

or I said it,

I could not tell.

The sea

was as it had been,

and I

had been away too long.

Beneath the horse's feet

was dark ground.

I
looked at that place,

then looked down at my own feet.

It was the place I had come back to,

yet setting down one foot
took time.

The wind
pushed at the hem of my clothes.

I

moved one step
toward where the horse stood.

The horse

did not step back.

Nor did I

go any closer.

Beneath the horse's feet,

dark ground.

Beneath my feet,

the same ground.

I

put a little more of my weight

on the foot I had set down.