Into this Breathing World
Found in hallowed soil,
his scoliotic spine strung
loosely like a rosary
(one shoulder higher than the other;
five foot eight but would have seemed
much shorter) he’d been struck
by many men so each
could claim the fatal blow.
History has told of his unhorsing.
Mounted on his courser,
no terrain however steep
would have defeated him.
He could have gone where no roads go,
however crooked he became,
if he had lived.
He would have fought
to reach completion
like the gibbous moon.
He would have sought
to be compared with trees
whose curvature
in bole and bough is grace.