after the sculptures of Deborah Butterfield

In my dream the life-size metal sculpture,
a horse, not solid, but with open spaces,
the connecting curved plates creating
an abstract of the beautiful animal,
the long nose open from crest to muzzle,
belly barrel open too. And yet he
(I knew it was a he, a bay) looked full
of spirit, ready to come to life.
 
It came to me how we are all
only partially formed and always
in the process of formation,
partially exposed, partially protected.
In children we can see that easily
as they come into being, opening
and closing and opening again.
 
I’m thinking now about the passage
from the book my husband read to me
last night, just before I slept:
how Jefferson, so long the optimist
concerning the human spirit,
fell into a depression at his life’s end.
And his old friend Adams,
opened into hope at the end of his,
both dying, five hours apart, on July 4.
 
I’m thinking of the woman on the radio,
called in to quell the rioting kids in the juvenile hall.
They suddenly quieted in their cells
as she whispered, though all could hear,
to the one she knew best on the block,
Jimmy, What’s this about?
 
When she told the boys stories of the Japanese prison camp
where she’d been held as a child, they listened too
because she opened herself to them.
 
I’m thinking of my mother,
who became a waitress, then a wife,
then a woman who wanted to die,
and tried, so she was sent to Napa State Hospital,
which she hated. She saw it as the insane asylum.
 
But then she changed again,
and when she was back home,         
baked Christmas cookies,
brought them to the others there,
and was happy
for a while.
 
I want to ride that horse that’s open and closed,
broken and whole, keep him close to me
so I can remember that always,
even far along the road,
we can learn to be open.
And that sometimes
it is possible
to make our own miracles.