A Kind of Paradise

Walking through the mango trees, the horses
are there, throats taut like plucked strings
as they suck cool water from the basin.
The bay stomps a foot. Her moony rump heaves,
and so the day exhales. No air sweeter than here,
no light more golden, the warmth of that light
held by the mangoes long after dusk has muscled
in. This privacy between horizons, the weightless
silence. Fruit drops clean through air into soil.
The reliability of that. The horses swing their heads
to spit the punctured skins back into earth.
In the flimmering night the canopy resembles
something impenetrable. How ancient this all is.
To lie among the trees and hear the horses
breathe under a black sky, the ground sweet
with rotten fruit. Managing desires as they come,
little by little: food, water, sleep. Love, even.
Understanding this as the happiness
the horses know, between the trees in summer.

Audio produced by Britta Jorgensen for Voices of Trees at the Digital Writers Festival 2017.