wild ponies

Keep digging diligently the same deep row, poets preach,
Sooner or later, you’ll find water, maybe salt, even gold;
Perhaps miraculously, some rare 1st century roman coin
stubbornly stamped w the head of a caeser.
But I can’t find wise words like that underground, I’ve tried,
dug many a dark well & only got a backache.
Instead I playfully & childishly see my fearless herds of words, undisciplined cloud dream puzzle pieces, young wild ponies
dancing on the horizon, flicking flies, neighing at each other playfully
in some language I’ll never understand.
When I run to tether them they scatter;
were I to mount one, I’d be thrown breathless for my efforts.
Enticed by a handful of hay, their eyes roll back, teeth gnash,
& in the midst of snorting if I’m lucky I’ll escape w all ten toes & fingers.
Sometimes at dawn I capture them visually, unsaddled
standing peaceably beneath an apple tree, munching momentarily
in dusky reverie silhouetted before the pale
aurora of my semi consciousness.
The moment I awake & make a single sound, they stampede off,
& in the cozmic cloud of dreamdust, disappear.
So despite kind counsel & admirable advice,
I cannot dig for dreams like new potatoes buried down to dirt beneath –
I lack the discipline. I witness wild mustang & palomino ponies galloping & am reminded by the flashing yellow manes & ochre tails
that paint the sky I cannot hold, I cannot tame them, own them,
herd them & if I stooped to feed them on my knees! I’d for my pains
no doubt get binocular black eyes. & yet I’ll follow poets who
tend the gardens of their souls w daily disciplines & rituals
& harvest heavy hidden bounties from the soil. I too partake of all they’ve brought forth from the ground at groaning tables rich w succulent delights, & I can only bring the questionable value
of my constant jealous greedy appetite,
& trundle barrows back to royally repay the poet’s worth in compost,
& up-end barrows full of rich dark fertilizer,
to freshly with full fork addend the appreciated generous quality of earth
where roving wild pony herds / occasionally still happen by.