Adele Ne Jame-IV

This Day

 

For Remy Oshlik

1983-2012

 

 

Finally, after days of rain— sun

and clouds roll over the hills dreamlike—

perfect upcountry morning.

I pull the Jeep over on the shoulder of

Crater Road to watch a pair of horses

grazing in the sun. How their burnished

coats gleam against the wild green,

fields of yellow dandelion and brush,

how flies swarm their flanks in the heat

and how their muscles shiver them away,

their tails snapping side to side

in the north wind. They do not notice me

or care about me—or the others

in the suffering world—

not the French photographer

killed in Homs bearing witness—

not those grieving for him— or any of the others.

They simply do what horses do perfectly

and steadily behind a barbed wire

fence that keeps me out.