Between Deffingen and Denzingen,
_ _ summer opened the road
forward, browning the fields and hillsides
_ _ of a country so barren
that the smallest horse grazing seemed
_ _ resentful and withdrawn,
no longer seat and throne of men
_ _ but pigeon-grey splotch
on the Blaue Reiter landscape, inured
_ _ forever to the flow
of traffic, where once it drank from rivers,
_ _ and aware of itself
as fodder for the glue factory,
_ _ as much cattle as the cattle.
Between the route the Neckar runs
_ _ and the dirty Danube,
neither the chatter of nits nor
_ _ the bleatings of birds
on the horse’s chest, spreading ears
_ _ folding over the wind
as night comes on, while stones and woods
_ _ stay no longer in their places,
begin to course, sing, and wheel,
_ _ like livestock once did,
leaving behind the parcel of the world
_ _ over the larded breast
of Southern Germany: a resource,
_ _ a wind through which
the horse rolls up to heaven
_ _ its dull and stolid eyes.
Evan Jones was born in Toronto and now lives in Manchester, United Kingdom; he recently completed a PhD at the University of Manchester. His poems have appeared in PN Review, Poetry Review, and Poetry Wales_._ His first collection, Nothing Fell Today But Rain (Markham, Ontario: Fitzhenry & Whiteside), was a finalist for the Governor-General’s Literary Award for Poetry. His second collection, Paralogues, is forthcoming from Carcanet, as is an anthology of Canadian poetry that he is co-editing. (updated 4/2010)