Equus Aethereus

Painting by Rick Mobbs


Equus Aethereus

Osti-uma was a traveler,
a dimensional rider
of the cosmic winds,
spiritual slider
through divers portals gently,
like a blond breeze,
warm and golden;
remaining always the watcher,
the witness,
a particle of God’s occipital mass,
directed in this plane
on us, and them—
seeing everything, but
tasked sometimes to be
the comforter, the muse, the guide;
even supplying maternal marrow
when she happened upon
those husks hollowed out,
those empty shells abandoned
but still breathing,
in dire need of rescue,
or resuscitation.

Her beautiful green skin gleamed
smoothly, like a verdant pearl,
for she surely must be
Nature’s offspring,
one of the emerald daughters, who
with her sisters glided
through rocks, buildings, mountains,
hearts and minds;
sent lovingly to observe,
like the Angels of old,
like the dolphins of the deep,
to see it all,
to catalog it all,
and to report
it all.

One day in what would later
be called New Mexico,
on a high desert plateau,
fenced securely with cliffs
and red rock towers
poking fingerlings
into the perfect blueness,
where the wild mustang herds
ran like galloping thunder,
I discovered an ostracon,
perhaps an Anasazi shard of pottery
with part of an inscription which read,
“Osti-uma and Ada-teria were seen…”

Ancient words in aboriginal script,
recording a primal event,
a golden moment
when Osti-uma allowed herself
and her daughter to be visualized,
as they watched one of the first
equine families,
wild and unbroken,
free and unbridled
grazing shoulder to shoulder
a thousand fold,
mantling the sparse desert landscape.

The native was a cliff dweller
and corn farmer,
and his tribe never attempted
to capture, tame, or ride
the snorting stamping steads;
but mid-winter
when the corn baskets were low
and hunger stalked the pueblo,
they did hunt them,
bringing them down
with stone-tipped arrows and spears,
after which they
blessed them,
thanked them,
and ate them.

Osti-uma observed this ritual
and when the horse’s blood was shed
her vibrant thick robes,
usually striped in lush earth colors,
flashed ten kinds of red,
like a spectral barber pole.


She knew
that hunting was barbaric but
necessary for sustenance and survival;
not so with war.
When warriors slayed each other
her beautiful robes
would be drenched fully ocherous
for days, for months, years, eons—
as they are today;
as are my own.

Glenn A. Buttkus September 2008.