To Ride

I face the cold morning, and imagine the journey ahead.
Warm here, but beyond the rimed pane of glass
The chill awaits with icy teeth and hungry mouths
Ever willing to find or gnaw their way through my layered defenses.

And why venture out?
Here there is food; protection from cold and damp;
Light to chase away the demons;
And comfort to ease the body of its travails.

Away in its stable, my horse of plastic and iron remains cold and still
Needing only my lightest touch to spring into roaring life
Breathing fire and smoke
And ready to leap across field and hill.

I imagine it to be impatient, impervious to this blighted weather
But it knows no such feeling, nor any other.
This need to get out, to stretch into a gallop
or lope through the plodding carriages on their mundane errands
Is entirely and only mine.

14 December 2011, Sherman Oaks, California