These ponies promise a luckless journey
with their weathered manes and buckling legs.
Still you feed them nothing but flakes of blizzard
and in your disgruntled huff, I discern the word
'useless', but they are no more useless than the man
who rides on their white backs to the depot of death.
Kill the weak, I propose, so our dogs may feed
for I am unsure how much longer they can carry.
You speak to me of cruelty. Paragon of virtue, you
remind us all of feelings, your feelings defied
for the sake of a few days' march
because slaughter is only kind if the blade is unseen.
Do not mistake our empty stomach for sacrifice
just as you mistake crimson for bravery
or the bleak beyond for glory.
Baggage anchors into pack ice, glazed eyes
boring into our sunken hearts as we mourn
a brother fallen.
The merciless gale flays my old wound
open; from within a perennial snowdrop blooms.
I know what it asks of me – it drinks the blood
that I freely and so generously give. I lay it
over your heads, its lucent bulb a guardian of dreams,
and leave for an indefinitely long
walk.
