Questionnaire Concerning The White Horses

to the ones on white horses who lost their way
we will not blame you that this our minstrelsy
seems dead and that the nightingales

refuse to sing because you are not here.
and in the mists,rising we rise too,
in fleeting years,

in coded songs remembering
you used to think of us perhaps
in your dense forests,

now and again.
o why pretend?
the sallow children sang;

no reign is certain,
no matter how tightly they hold the reins.
and the white horses, were they only

what we dreamed?
or are we vanishing, too?

mary angela douglas 23 august 2016