May Column

First published in The Evening Sun

Last Sunday I had the honor of reading a poem at "No Greater Love," a memorial for the tenth anniversary of 9/11, held at South Western High School. To say the experience was moving is an understatement. The music, speakers, and presence of everyday heroes made for an incredible event.

I would like to give special thanks to Scott Fredericks for organizing the event and for including poetry, and Reverend Klaus Molzahn for imagining the idea for the program. As Molzahn said to me last Sunday, imagination is a powerful tool. I would also like to thank all the everyday heroes who serve our community and make it a better, safer place to live.

The following poem, which I read last Sunday, explores the role of a first-responder through an extended metaphor. I draw from a personal experience, of corralling horses that had gotten out in the middle of the night, to describe a first-responder's work and impulses. In the title, "Corralling Horses in the Dark," horses stand in for any of the obstacles one must overcome when trying to help others. It is amazing how often, as humans, we will "scrape our faces on the concrete of our own fears" in order to lend a hand.

Corralling Horses in the Dark


Something shuffling in the walls woke me
the cats staring at me, then the window.
What seemed at first a scuffle or a tapping
became familiar: horseshoes clapping macadam.
I thought of the storm, the gate, the large trucks
rumbling down a country road
at 5 a.m. with headlights blaring
and roused the house with ropes over my shoulder.
I became a concentrated version of myself,
a clear-headed, speed-heightened first responder
waking others, announcing my plan.
It was still dark as I chased hoofprints
in pajamas and muckboots,
imagining legs caught in barbed wire,
or worse, a horse frozen in a truck's headlights.

When one horse made a run for it
I dove for the gate,
legs covered in mud.
I imagined, instead, pants covered in ash,
the lives of our first-responders
whose boots tread other pavements:
firefighters, police, paramedics, military,
and the everyday heroes who respond
simply because another needs help.
Then, the gate became a face
and I imagined corralling my urgency
into one sprint,
one hand reaching,
one bicep flexing,
one body emerging
from the place of our haunting.
I imagined the repetition
of body after body,
my own limbs robotic.

First response stiffens each vein,
energizes each doubt that has sunk
to the pit of our stomachs.
Our instinct for triage is to know
if the face can remember its name,
feel its toes,
tell you where to find the wound,
where to find the others.

For the taste of freedom
horses will knock down fences,
and we will follow to save them,
even scrape our faces on the concrete
of our own fears
to know they are safe,
that they will heal.