WILD STALION OF TEN SUMMERS
my fierce enemy.
If you could run free
on vast grassy plains,
and mate at nature’s urge,
and hide your herd
in thick forests,
you would not need my yoke.
But time hangs heavy
on the civilized head.
That man who would be free
must first be bound.
A painful discipline
of limb and mind
that breaks the will,
which once again emerges
in new and marvelous strength.
All this at ten
you cannot know
angry, defiant male
when you are
told to practice
a tedious piano scale.
