Andrea Potos: “Burren Messenger”

BURREN MESSENGER

County Clare, Ireland

At the jagged stone fence pocked with lichen

and moss, the wild horse stood tall, speckled-grey

tinged silver like a beacon of moonlight,

ears perked, staring at me

as I stood beside the car, waiting

for my husband and daughter to return

from hopping the rain-sieved limestone

down to the bristling sea and back

while I worried for their safety,

while I worried for my mother

across the Atlantic and fading fast

from lesions we did not know had spread.

I kept turning to the horse,

erect in stillness and gravity

and a strange promise of balm,

as if sentinel

on the border between worlds.

Andrea Potos is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently A Stone to Carry Home (Salmon Poetry, Irelandand Arrows of Light (Iris Press). She received the 2016 William Stafford Prize in Poetry.

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