Something I dream about

Yesternight, my daughter often said when she was little.
She liked to make these perfect words,
at that age when precise oddities
of language were so precious.

Yesternight, so dreamy,
so full of possibility already sprung free
from the imagination,
now, today coming into being.

Yesternight, sacred like vespers
sweet like whispers
of horses named Norman, July Johnson, and Dartanian

pure like prayers for mules and cow ponies
who don’t like needles
who need their alfalfa chopped
and a place to be free

Yesternight,
she called me, while I sat in a meeting
thinking about today and tomorrow
and too many numbers

Mom, I met a horse named Puddin
She’s thirty-three
She won’t eat
She stumbles
She’s lost her back teeth.

And then,
I fed her with my hands,
my daughter told me yesternight.

Now, I can’t stop dreaming of the place
where Puddin and July Johnson or whoever of them needs to
share a field, share a long breath
with me and her and, maybe you,
can come spend all their yesternights.