Don’t let your dreams dry up in the heat
You have to keep them well watered
I need to know that there are snow leopards
Even if I never get to see one
That way I will keep a place in my mind
That will always have room for wildness
I need to ride my white horse Jed
Racing through the woods to Mount Misery
Even though he left this world long ago
I need to believe that he is still with me
I did see him again at least I think it was him
That day on the moor when the wild ponies came
If we live in the myth of eternal return
We may lose our beloveds but they come back
Though it may be in the form we never expect
And the white horse you knew is a phantom
Just leave the door of the barn always open
For all the horses that have been waiting for you
Poem by Carol Flake Chapman
A former journalist, Carol Flake Chapman returned to poetry, her first love, after the sudden death of her husband on a wild river in Guatemala shattered her life. Poetry, she found, was the language she needed not only for her own healing but for responding to a troubled world. Her most recent book is titled Wild Surprises: Stories and Poems about Encounters that Shifted my World.