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| Joan Digby with Snowball |
Joan Digby
Watching Snowball graze,
I catch the lazy rhythm
of his rumination.
Stepping through the field
he buries his soft nose in grass
tasting the menu of an August morning.
Dew still hovers on the clover,
most succulent of flowers in the field.
I think of landscape gardeners
with their "Weed-Be-Gone,"
poisoners of a horse's richest fare.
They know nothing - he everything
about his pastoral land.
Tethered to his halter
I wander as his pupil,
learning to avoid the bitter plantain,
leave the blue cornflowers to adorn the fence
and bees to drink the roses.
Watching Snowball graze,
I catch the lazy rhythm
of sunlight spreading on the meadow,
feeling no urgency to leave this place
where the swishing of his long melodic tale
sings promise of a radiant day.
'Watching Snowball Graze' by Joan Digby from Snowball Caught a Bug published by Joan's own The Feral Press. Reprinted with author's permission.
Book is illustrated by Mollie Eckelberry.
Snowball, a pony from the North Shore Equestrian Center of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, received quite some attention - C.W. Post published a story on Snowball - HORSE SENSE: ENGLISH PROFESSOR GIVES SPECIAL CARE TO PONY AT C.W. POST, which included the poem we have printed here.
Horses, though represented in various publications: I Rolled Today or Snowball Caught a Bug and important in her life and teaching - Joan had her class not only write poems on horses but also attend horse hair pottery making with Sue Adler, were not the sole topic of Joan's verses. She has a great affinity to camels, thus collection Camels and other Mammals, cats A Clowder of Cats and Oystermania CSI. She even wrote tennis poems Marks on the Surface: tennis poems'. With her husband, John Digby, poet and collage artist, she co-edited books on food & drink in poetry: 'Food for thought: an anthology of writings inspired by food' and 'Inspired by drink: an anthology'.
Joan runs the C.W. Post Poetry Center of Long Island University, established 1974. The Center organizes Poetry Awards Nights, Poetry Appreciation Day readings, and promotes a wide range of emerging and established poetry by local, domestic, and international artists.
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