Two poems by the Dutch poet Peter van Lier

HORSE JOY (I)

Still

standing it persists as a

staying in clusters, munching at grass as

a happy whinnying that causes tails to swish: nothing

exceptional, it could be said,

until –

the farmer with the forage bin on his back (‘giddy-up’)

turns up, recognised already by every horse at a distance

as a

forerunner of what every horse’s heart is longing

for: end of period working at a trot; away with the concentrates,

        ‘luscious farting on sorrel and clover’?

HORSE JOY (II)

Lying,

back to back, in clusters,

‘something a horse rarely indulges in!’,

is seen by farmers as a high point of agrarian existence,

even to such an extent

that –

in many a country marriage

the decision’s

taken that ‘the small hoofs (‘gee-up’)

must kick the air just one more time’,

especially after that long period of darkness: full of deep silence and

        labour of sweating horses.