Classic Poem

Gray despair
Was on the old mare,
Grass turned bitter,
Sky a-glare,
And thoughts like gnats,
And gnats like thoughts,
Everywhere.

Her underlip
Hung pendulous, wide,
Her ears twitched back,
Her dusty hide
Heaved with her heavy breathing
And her eyes rolled ominously
To one side.

The mule colt lay
In trampled grass,
Slick-eared, long-tailed,
Bespeaking the ass,
Carried so long in her body,
Born in travail and sweat,
Alien, alas!

But staggering
To unsteady feet
The mule-colt fumbles
An unknown teat—
And suddenly the old mare accepts the inevitable
And finds any motherhood