‘Tis a great big black horse
that runs steady and agile on a hard turf
Round and round and round it goes
Both to contest and alone
The equine bears a great load
of beauty and wealth and greatness and vain
He follows no master and hears no plea
but has no will of his own and neither is free
For our great stallion bears no sentiment for masters
nor cares for fodder or hay or water
The beast merely wishes to run and so it does
Never tiring, knowing it shall one day just drop dead
You see, that’s the thing with speed
You forget where you are headed to get there faster
Because if you do not, someone else will
And so you race, caring little for what might be at stake
The other thing you may not realize
or for that matter, society may not realize
how many breaths or air our stallion lacks
As they say, it is the last straw that breaks the horse’s
back
The horse runs alone and wild
for that is the price of freedom and speed
For it might see many running along with it
But how would any stop if he did to neigh along?
Celebrations amound for faster and faster records
for why not be merry as long as the party lasts
Surely we’ll find another if this one gives away
The laws of nature says all things succumb to change
For joyous trumpets blow when the horses run
and pictures taken in days of strength and glory
And songs are sung and poems written and plays performed
For when the horses run, the bulls rejoice and the bears cry
But each horse sleeps alone at night
and wonders whether each one is as lonely
For there’s no greater loneliness
than the one found in the large crowds
And small wondrous blinking eyes follow the trails
wondering how it would be to run for themselves
But such thoughts vanish when the races begin
For legs and heads must work, and hearts need not be awake
And dreams of embraces and rains and the smell of damp soil
replace themselves with pounding hearts and strong legs
Notions of sympathy and empathy replaced with intolerance
for weakness
For this turf is not for the faint-hearted, it is for large
black horses
And the Earth trembles when these beasts make way
And creatures of the Earth are forced to either grow
stronger or die
The horses don’t care, nor have the will to do so
for all will and all focus, need be on the race and race
alone
One might see the brutality and harshness in such mindless
soulless races
others, as they should, argue otherwise
For most horses are mindless beasts with no concept of
“purpose”
So the mindless race fulfils a life searching for utility
Further, failure always emerges from an unfulfilled dreams
hence not allowing dreams defeats failure from life
‘Tis might be also true that no equine would wish to run,
had it been able to consider
But that gives them life and purpose,
and if they live long enough, they might consider greener
pastures
They might rest a night and sing a while and eat the
greenest grass
But it all comes at a price, and through the day, the horses
must ride
Broken as such, many of the horses are
some have a twisted ankle, some die of exasperation
some still run but have long been dead for much else
Others still, have no soul left to be impaired
Broken some and some are dead
Others still, are hale and alive and run like hell
They’re usually young, or ones who won
And the rare few who grew old, but never gave up
For the race also offers glory and pride and larger turfs to
race
Can it be called vanity? If so then their entire lives have
been vain
Some say many things of the color of grass on each on
different sides
But for them, the grass is green under their hoofs, there’s
no grass any other side
Vishal Gupta
2 March 2018
