Nut-Brown Stallion (Poetry)

I don’t recall
now many summers ago it was —
a dozen, maybe, or nearer fifteen
but I was younger by more than years
my body fitter, stronger, lean
with more reserves of hope in it
and country-walking energy
my camera hefted light
and I snapped away enthusiastically
at almost everything in sight.

There was a field we stopped beside
with horses — four, perhaps, or five
and one came over — friendly
a nut-brown stallion who so-obligingly bent
over the barbed wire fence
and let me take a close-up —
eye to lens unflinching
his breath sweet with meadow grass
he shared with me a moment
gentle in the sun.