[34] The Foal, John Delaney

Scientists find perfectly preserved ancient foal in Siberia . . . younger than two weeks when it apparently drowned in mud
. . .estimated to be 42,000 years old. — CNN

The day a workman carried you out of the crater in his arms,
all gangly legs, with matted hair still brown,
perfectly preserved in the permafrost,
it seemed that you had just been born.

But not to an age tusked by woolly mammoths,
nor manhandled by implements of stone.
You were destined for more gallantry than that.
That past has thawed: you’ve come into your own.

The stocky Mongol horses of the Steppes,
the thoroughbreds of bluegrass Kentucky,
and every saddled workhorse in-between—
if they could race, with nostrils flaring, back through time,

their pounding hooves would herald your grand story:
how you became their speed and strength and glory.