Prequel To the Horses By Edwin Muir

It was not a decision taken lightly When we found that our free servitude Unrequited was by our chosen masters With their metal monsters they had fallen in love Growling,roaring and spitting fumes Our nostrils filling with the smell of burnt sugar Until that became an acrid stench Drowning all the sweet sounds and scents of nature In the raw Our fields they usurped While we were driven into odd and idle corners To become their playthings For pleasure alone No more did we strive together in mutual harmony With our erstwhile lords According to the laws of the cosmos Divinely ordained Now their homes at night pulsed with a ghostly glow While by day their gazes were held on screens With the digital pallor Reflected on their faces Totally immune to the cycle of the seasons It was then we chose to withdraw And quietly retreated to our spiritual home Bereft and pining for that lost communion Which had served man and horse so well In the Creator's plan There was no more for us to do Than to commune with the divine presence Until they were wrenched free fom their spellbinding devices And needed our companionship Once again