The 4th Horseman
so what cried the horseman, the just shall be judged by the haunted men, and the round world will roll one more time in the now and off on the merry old road by the light of the rood.
applause. so this is your song, said the girl in the apple-wine sun by the mud-brown creek in the reeds beneath the willows of flax that was her hair all along, and nothing more but meanings wrapped in word jackets—the gist—she thought and felt curious bubbles, thunder-clap chills bracing her on the bobbing line a bat threads as it floats in a room not its own.
curious how meaning leaves me empty, she said in not so many words.
the horseman rode and the girl fermented on the sun-line’s edge, threaded by ink-black thunderheads and god’s finger writhing to torch the ground and swirl all worlds over head. do you believe in miracles? she asked. amid this road dust kicked up by passing cars, animals trampled, and love made acceptable for five minutes of happiness some people claim in pity-ridden lives of mud and swamp-green smudge. what else but this could be miraculous.
reducing into words fouls the thought like engine exhaust.
clop went the hooves and the horseman rode high in saddle, leather burning his crotch as he leaned to swash his scythe at wheat in the Technicolor brilliance of clear-sighted now, no pause existed on heaven or earth, not even a bated whisper, only the lull of ages rumbling like wagon wheels over dirt paths, locomotion over rails screaming on the clank line.
she sat still and thought how wine-colored sun aging in the afternoon soothes the mind, so emotions can be warmed to whirlpools of soft and brilliant undulations like breezes skimming the mist off morning, like waves on the lake and ripples tucked against rocks in the stream, as the water flows towards places she would never explore.
when the horseman returned for her the sky fell, so she went inside to explore the depth and smells of shelter, the chipped paint, dried wood, the corners of cracked plaster and carpet threads, and the humid air spawned drops on the window screen, and the horseman wielded all he could, showering his curses at the rain where all worn thoughts bled in dyed blotches.
you’re not evil, she said. just as this life filled with wrong isn’t any less wonderful for your being here. the horseman ripped his rood by the roots. you’re right. and i’ve waited and torn through eternity for someone like you.
gray-light eyes shone through her undefined. you may be right but no one deserves noble credit, just respected like garden shrubs pruned, dogs and cats petted and fed, it’s not the same but short of murder, I’m gunning to last, like a forest tree.
there is little wisdom in words but whatever can be gathered can be peeled off to the core of abyss before all big bangs banged, and inside that core is god’s summer home between darkness and dawn, the unraveled dusk before night—he said, musk on his breath, sincere to the core of his dishonesty.
true she nodded, stroking a couple of insect bites on her arm. it may be true, maybe you peel more away to find all somethings in nothing and play games till you’re gone and think through the stars until they’re no longer spots of light but definitions, shapes in your mind. nothing wrong with that, but every exhalation needs a breath of the air around you before wondering aloud what it is being alive before sundown.
they looked into one another and inhaled the rain-soaked air, a depth charge of glimmers, planks of sun bending through the western sky.
Copyright © 2007 by Jim Esch
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