Standing Abreast

July 2 2018

In a ripening field

two horses stand abreast,

head to tail, facing away.

Their muscled flanks, sheened with sweat

are ever so lightly touching,

a chestnut mare, and her roan cousin

in the hot and torpid air.

A wild pasture, far from man,
with tall grasses, heavy with seed

wild flowers, in promiscuous pink

and a scatter of blue and gold.

In the indolent heat, flies buzz

bedevilling each massive beast.

Infesting

her enormous eyes;

the rheumy whites,

the trail of mucus 

running down the inner crease. 

Alighting

on the moist margins of her lids

so they twitch with every touch.

And probing

her ears' warm recesses

and ever so sensitive nose.

One's face

brushed by the other's tail

back and forth, and back and forth.

Long coarse hairs

that flick with surprising force,

a whipsaw whisk

swishing the flies away.

Not survival of the fittest

as in dominance and death,

but a herd of wild horses

who know to stand abreast

as is the way of their kind.

Her sturdy frame leans in,

so the incremental pressure

of each intake of breath

is like a reassuring presence

against her side;

the power of touch

the constancy of friends.

Herd animals, working together

to give, as well as get.

We misread Darwin. Survival is as much about cooperation as it is competition.

And no, it's not romantic anthropomorphism to say that there can be friendship among animals.

Nor is the power of touch any different; whether it's herd animals, like wild horses, or social animals, like us.

I was watching an episode of Nature, on PBS (Pets: Wild at Heart - Episode 2, which can be seen at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/pets-wild-at-heart-episode-2-secretive-creatures/13220/) and this instinctive (learned?) behaviour among wild horses was shown. I was struck by its cleverness; and knowing first hand how flying/biting insects can persecute me, I also felt a great deal of empathy for their plight! There was something compelling about this image, and when it returned to me the next day, I thought this might make a nice lyric poem: small, descriptive, self-contained.

And I also thought it might be good vehicle for a rumination on friendship among animals, as well as on the concept of reciprocal altruism. Reciprocal altruism is the utilitarian basis of morality; and what we privilege – with our conceit of personal agency and free will – as rectitude and goodness when it's done by us.

And it's also an important mechanism in evolution: one that is counter-intuitive to the usual understanding of Darwinism and nature as dog eat dog, and “red in tooth and claw”.