There Are No More Horses Here
by Johanna Emeney
All the tools are still greased against rust.
Dust kicked up from the shed floor
or swept through from the unmetalled drive
sticks to lines of hammers, chisels,
a posthole digger, a tractor wrench, their shapes
chalked behind them like dead men on sidewalks.
To take them down, to grip them, means grit—
a long, dirty handshake with The Farming Life:
the acknowledgement that preservation costs,
is not pretty or comfortable. Usefulness
has a scent, and obsolescence is the threat
hanging back there with the ill-packed hame,
the bitless bridle limp in idleness,
its leather so perished, to fold a rein
would crumble it like thick wet cardboard.
Johanna Emeney recently completed her PhD on the topic of medical poetry at Massey University where she has also enjoyed a role as tutor in Creative Writing. Emeney delivers the Michael King Young Writers Programme with her friend Rosalind Ali. They also work with older adults, migrant youth and local teens on various Council-sponsored writing programmes. Emeney’s book of poetry Apple & Tree was published by Cape Catley in 2011.