The Mustang

A darkened hill, and a crimson West,
   And silhouetted against the light
A black mustang on a tawny crest
   Rears aloft in a sudden fright.

Startled perhaps by a coyote's cry,
   Or a scent on the wind; a moment
      there
He is a marble chiseled on the sky;
   He is a motion captured on the air.

Sinewed power and strength and grace,
   And wild, wild beauty, and the hill
Is only a canvas on whose face
   An upreared muscled form stands
      still.

A moment only, and then a hand
   Has swept the canvas clean, to leave
A lonely barren space, a hush--
   And something lost for which I
      grieve.

       ~ Grace Noll Crowell