At the Trotting Races

Anglican Theological Review, Spring 2006 by Herbert, Mary Kennan

The county fair in Mayfield, Kentucky,

featured Jersey calves: velvet noses to pat.

Blue ribbons were awarded to pies,

tomatoes, corn, and every good yield.

A Ferris wheel was there of course,

for heavenly excursions with cotton candy.

At night, harness races were sure to please:

trotters and pacers under beckoning lights.

The sound of hoof beats on a long ago track-

I can hear them, coming around the bend

into a poem, a phalanx of horses gleaming,

and lathered with sweat, beyond reach.

I watched sulkies as light as moth wings

spin out a last fairy tale at the fading fair.

I grew up and now see it all in daydreams that

distract me from-but maybe lead me to-

prayer, like Stations of the Cross

in a cathedral or a carnival, or both.

MARY KENNAN HERBERT*

* Mary Kennan Herbert teaches at Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York. Her most recent collection of verse is Days of Horses, Dreams of Horses.