A White Horse, 7 November 2017

I kept refusing
Opportunities to die.
Good opportunities, too,
Excellent chances.

The bright new penny
Landed face up in the mud.
So did the smooth worn quarter,
Then the dull nickel.

Three times I had asked
Should I come down the mountain?
Should I try another day?

The odds of three heads
The same as three straight
Pregnancies inheriting
A dominant mutation,

Long enough to seem a sign
But not nearly long enough
To be sure of it.

Better to lie here and die
Or live one more day and lie?
A hawk was watching,

As was a white horse.
Conquest? Pestilence?
I went back down the mountain.

Next day, there I was,
Nothing resolved or conquered,
My own mind a pestilence.

But I did greet a sweet dawn
And moonlight as white as that horse.
I got to hug my daughter.