Actually, my favorite poem for 2002 would have to be James Wright's "In Memory of the Horse David, Who Ate One of My Poems," but you'll have to look that one up yourselves; it's too difficult to add here.  So I'll go for Jewel's "Wild Horse,"  which I was very surprised to love as much as I do.

 

Wild Horse

 

I'd like to call you my wild horse

and feed your silver sage

 

I'd like to paint my poems

with desert tongued clay

across

your back

and ride you savagely

as the sweet southern wind

through a green and wild Kentucky

 

I'd like to make you my secret sun

blazing dark and red in the orchards

and I would steal away

to watch the way

your silver belly bends

and bows beneath me

 

I'd make you my wings

in the foothills of Montana

my liver in the oceans of the world

 

I'd make you my many calico children

and scatter you

across

the green memories of home

 

I'd be your hungry Valley

and sow your golden fields of wheat

in my womb

 

                     Jewel