A Blessing
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
Notes
Two men stop beside a highway in Minnesota and encounter a pair of ponies grazing beyond a fence. Nothing extraordinary seems to be happening, yet in James Wright's A Blessing, this brief encounter becomes an experience of almost unbearable tenderness. One pony approaches with a curious affection, and the poet finds himself overwhelmed by the simple privilege of being alive in that moment. We spend so much of our lives searching for meaning through achievement, recognition, or some imagined future. Wright discovers it in an encounter that offers none of these things. The distance between ourselves and the world briefly disappears, and existence feels sufficient without needing to justify itself. As October's Decay approaches its end, the poem offers a beautiful response to despair. The world remains vulnerable to loss, and nothing about this moment promises permanence. Yet a chance encounter beside an ordinary highway can still awaken something within us that we thought had disappeared. Perhaps renewal sometimes begins when we stop demanding that life become extraordinary. #JamesWright #AmericanPoetry #ContemporaryPoetry #Existentialism #NaturePoetry
James Wright, “A Blessing” from Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose. Copyright 1990 by James Wright.