(after Ada Limon)

written on Wadi Wadi land

There’s a herd of horses on Springhill Road, a dozen or so. Agisted on the setback to the Hot Strip Mill, their paddock is fenced with steel made right here.

I see them briefly most days—heads down, leaning together in threes, twos, or pairs with one further off—driving as I do between home and town. Dappled greys, chestnut and horse-brown, they’re ordinary-sized, a medium number of hands high. They crop the vivid green paddocks or stand four-square as horses do.

On the other side of the works, there’s Port Kembla. I’ve lived here for a decade now. The northerlies bring the funk of coal, sooty washing, sheets and pillowcases, grit on the waterbowl, inhaler by the bedside. ‘It used to be worse,’ my neighbour (who’s ninety) says with a shake of her head. ‘Much worse.’ Wonder how we’re inured to train brakes shrieking, huge plumes of steam, ships moaning. And the horses? With flames all night, violet and yellow.

The horses are loved. Dads and daughters pull out of the speeding traffic into the culvert to unload bales, brushes. A granny smith offered on the flat of a hand. Some Saturdays they’ll back a float in and drive to a bridle path or event somewhere.

Blanketed by soot and noise the horses remain, full of possibility. And we wonder, while waiting for the lights, whether in dreams—a dash down savage grasses, the thrill and wind in the run

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Image: Horse in Motion, Eadweard Muybridge, 1830-1904 c/- Boston Public Library. Ada Limon is US poet laureate and her earlier work included poems on horses including Foaling Season. The horses at the steelworks are a different herd entirely. Springhill Road runs adjacent to the Bluescope Steelworks at Port Kembla.

And for music this morning, something beautiful from Saint Hidegard von Bingen via Australian artists Kim Cunio and Heather Lee with various musicians: The Sacred Fire (youtubers).