The Kicker

Equus africanus, suffer your suffix, asinus.  
Et tu burro?  
Come on, and up now, 
up and up and raise your hooves in defiance 
of the ferrier.  He’ll not have you!  
Kick the air and shake up the strings 
in the theory of how things move.  
And then sing to me your song.  
It is ancient and, like the stars we see 
is from the past; 
a noise that filled the desert 
and was heard by a master of ages.  
 
Come here to me know till I tell you; 
you’re not fitting the mould.  
Your relatives in stories are bullish, 
or sterile in their subbornness.  
Or jackasses when juxtaposed with a stallion.  
But you, yourself, you’re stellar, you’re sterling, 
You’re silver, 
Platero, and plato wise.   
 
Come here to me, ass.  M’asal dun
Barbarian only because you’re not understood. 
The King’s own trumpet
Not heat or peat or feet of clay 
But like the first few cries of a baby 
born, when air is new and turbulent within.
Your braying, straining neck is herald
Of dawn, and danger, and the dumb declaring.  
 
Come here to me, kicker.  You thistling-whistler
Come here and stand by me, coarse-haired knower 
Of what comes to pass with patience and listening
What was said to you by so many?  
This tattered outlaw, 
Who moves among the many 
unknown
 And bears the burden of their whispers.