Finding

It is not about going on a particular night in the knowledge of finding a foal;
it is the chance of it, the perhaps – the making of time to try.
The struggling up at three in the morning in the strangeness of the dark
to get ready in soft voices; the going out into the fields on padded feet,
no longer worrying about what tasks have been completed, which left undone.
It is about walking together leaving silvery trails, uneven, through long lush grass;
about coming at last to the place where you hoped it might happen,
for some things are not certain – in this world where almost everything
is written down and long decided – and always it has been that way.
This water meadow where there is always scent of something not quite known;
a bowl made of low hills and round it the ancient trees held in the still dark.
However many yards away the foal already trying to hobble onto legs ridiculously big,
and she pouring into him all the love that she possesses.
Unselfconsciously and with reverence
it is about kneeling in the long wet grass to watch, to wonder.

--Kenneth Steven, Scots poet, from Iona: New and Selected Poems (Paraclete Poetry).