Clapboard Houses

Ron Sharpe

After years we tire
of this ride on horseback
the vagaries of give and take
and seek the freedom to ride alone
sans the worldly stallion
unbound by appointed days.

A walk in winter leads out
past the clapboard houses
and the picket yards
to a field of snow
and a quiet whiteness awaiting
the mark of our peculiar footprint
the singular signature of our struggles.