In The Nursing Home
She is like a horse grazing
a hill pasture that someone makes
smaller by coming every night
to pull the fences in and in.
She has stopped running wide loops,
stopped even the tight circles.
She drops her head to feed; grass
is dust, and the creekbed’s dry.
“Master, come with your light
halter. Come and bring her in.”
Jane Kenyon, “In the Nursing Home” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by The Estate of Jane Kenyon. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org.