Resurrection

When you called from hospice
and asked what I was doing
these days, I said riding horses.
There was something about horses
that I wanted to leave you with.
You told me you dreamed a lot about horses.
I should have known it was the last time
we would speak. On some level I did.
I knew. I should have gone to see you.
I said riding horses and you said
keep on riding horses. I said I would send you
a poem and I thought there was
time still—the poem about how a shaft
of sunlight through a stall window
caught the dust, how it moved, so
alive it made me turn from the horse,
turn from cleaning the mud from his hooves
and turn again, stunned.
Then, after blanketing the horse,
when I was about to leave, I saw
spirals of steam from his nostrils
unravel, refurl, tumble
and lift through that same
cut of light. The undulance.
The brilliance.
The glow. I wanted
you to know I knew:
Dust. Breath. Both of them shone.