Horses in Paradise – a poem by Rebecca Surmont

Horses in Paradise

There are horses in paradise
dappled, bay, and bronze.
Their muscled ascent frees
an avalanche of dust.

They drink the air, eat nothing
stop only for memory – their foothills –
then drop them like a root, snort, and gallop again.

These wildings are not for riding any more than a shadow,
only thoughts tame them 
in the smell of hay and salt, baked clay and clover.
Their hooves keep time, become the sound
of the clocks, the ones ahead and ones behind 
until there is only the hum.

Each faces the tail ahead, the distance between
room enough to take flight, tails and manes as wings.


Rebecca Surmont lives in Minnesota which invites exploration of the seasons and cycles of life that is often expressed in her work. She has a love of trains, corn fields, and tiny things. Her written work has been featured in publications such as Nature of Our Times (Poets for Science), MacQueen’s Quinterly, Stone Poetry Quarterly, Eunoia Review, Common Ground Review, Crowstep Poetry Journal, Ekphrastic Review, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, and Trouvaille Review. She is working on her first chapbook.