Hounds of the Steppes – brave, wild, sleek.
A streak through the landscape, never a sound.
I seek thee o’er land if you can be found
I long for your beauty, though your heart is not meek.
There they go! To be but a cloud
Yet the wolf slips away, the hare seeks the ground,
No more than a whisper, but an image I see
In my dreams forever. There,
I see only beauty, never vicious but proud,
That flies as if on winged feet for the heavens abound!
By light of day you run a heavenly course.
By dark of night you pursue a shooting star
Yet light years to eternity rend us apart,
I am forced to watch the Hounds run free from afar!
They are but a chimera that wafts through the clouds ~ merrily!
For they are Hounds of the Steppes.
To be lost or confined in boredom if forced to stay,
It will impel them on to their most wild and celestial way
Through the sky! “To the White Steppes!”
They will howl in their own special way
They will find their way free, as if by a magical eye
They will find their way to where they have been happiest!
The Hounds of the Steppes, their own White Steppes!
Eternal Hound, please, to be wherever you are!
My heart belongs to one lost long ago
Lost to the Hounds’ most open space
With blinding sun by day and dazzling stars by night…
‘Tis light, after all, a sight-hound’s true friend,
‘Twas light droves us apart… and left me behind.
I could but stand by and watch her fly to the chase
And pray, a vision eternity cannot erase,
Having lost so much and so far the way.
Hound of the Steppes, I shall seek you here, there
Ceaselessly, wherever you are and will ever be
Beyond the White Steppe’s furthest reaches
To the distant gate in the sky with the golden key
Or in Hell as you run your course most elusively.
Please think of me, remember me, find me here, there
On my lost path to eternity.
Lorene Connolly
June 2010
Coda:
Four years ago today and you were gone
My life became an endless quest
I lied and said you were walking by my side
It’s the only way I could go on.
You are a Hound of the Steppes.
July 7, 2010