Stopping to graze

i have ridden some miles in the afternoon sun
and i pause for a bit just to rest,
i step down from the back of my tired little dun
and loosen the cinch at his chest,
he carefully steps 'round the reins on the ground
and snorts at their sinister coil,
he searches and sniffs like some sort of hound
for grass growing sweet from the soil,
his quivering lips sort the grass from the weed
and happy he now starts to graze,
with eyes half-closed he begins to proceed,
through a world that is just a green haze,
and i ponder the thought of how many men
Assyrian, Greek, or Cheyenne
have stopped when the afternoon sun was ablaze
so their foot-weary ponies could graze. . . .

a late afternoon in Texas
1968