It must have been strange and exhilarating
For the first people who forged that bond
Between themselves and a species so unlike
And larger, and swifter, than them, not to hunt
Or to herd only for meat, although perhaps
Those things, too, at the start, but to ride,
To fuse with, to drive the world before them,
The first apes to race across open landscapes,
The first centaurs. No wonder their beliefs
And their languages remade the world,
No wonder they claimed to be all lords.
What humans could accomplish with wolves
At their side was remarkable, but with horses
Under them, they must have begun a new
Kind of delusion. They must have felt like gods.
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