Wooden Horse
He's a fine steed, made of a hard, shiny, dark wood,
his stride caught in a pose of elegance and grace.
She gave it to me in October 1985.
It was my first true love affair -
mutual, sincere.
It was grand.
While the sun only made one happy lap during that romance,
that year lives on in the wooden stallion,
whose beauty
is linked to that of my first love.
That year, I learned that love and life are beautiful and good,
that magic exists,
hope exists,
I am lovable,
I can love,
and life is worth living.
I lost the relationship but retained its lessons.
I owe gratitude to her, and to the message inside the keepsake.
If I lost this equine carving, it would be like losing a loved one.
In the 1990s, he snapped his shin.
I don't remember how.
I think I carelessly dropped him, and fixed him, not very well, with superglue.
A couple of times after that, he was fractured,
in the same spot, by my housecleaner.
In the 2000s, I brought him to my dad,
because his friend had offered to fix him correctly,
but that never happened.
In 2023, I asked my brother, with carpentry skills, to mend him,
but he didn't have his tools.
This year, I took him to the woodworking shop in my retirement community,
where some kind and skillful men put a dowel in his leg,
and restored him so you can never see the fracture.
Somehow, it gives me a feeling of well-being
that his limb, properly repaired, will never again be broken,
and that this object will outlive me,
and those who listen closely,
will hear it sing this testament
to youthful love.
Once, God, from heaven above,
granted two youths true love.
Together, then, they stood.
Yet, things that must end and die,
as life goes passing by,
live in a heart of wood.
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