Moon Blind

Overnight our white pony is wizened, his good eye sewn shut

after a kick or a nail. The other eye is moon blind:

better, then worse as the crescent thins. On a good day

it once tracked the flit of movement; now it’s a still pool,

unwitting mirror of a world he can’t see. Last night—snow,

now it’s gusting mist. Today’s a washout loss to be blind.

Snow so bright the shadows seem sculpted, the dark godly,

illumined as when the sea suddenly flattens:

glitter of moon in shallow troughs. Surely he sensed

before it happened, fleet register in the treble of spine.

A slump of snow thunders from the barn roof. Sidelined, blind.

Still he lifts his whiskered chin to the blow of white,

a microcosm shivers through whale-dark days. Snow scrims

the valley of his sunken eye, glitter pricks each lash in ice:

translated, shriven—for all we know—still-vigilant guardian of our world.