Ten Thousand Horses Standing Mute

Still send a message.
If living, they breathe.
If golem horses,
They can still charge.
If clay, they’re still signs.

A lively pony,
A wild whinnying
Colt in the grasslands,
Would be something else,
Better, more charming.

But down in the tomb
Sealed against light,
Ten thousand horses
Standing mute contain
All the ghosts you’ll need

To break out meanings—
Meanings stored in them,
Meanings that you bring
To them like rare grass
Reanimating

The past that brought them
Down into this tomb.
They’re deeply human
Brutes, these ten thousand
Horses, standing mute.