As May was opening the rosebuds, elder and lilac beginning to bloom, it was time for the mare to foal.  She'd rest herself, or hobble lazily

 

after the boy who sang as he led her to pasture, wading through the meadow flowers.  They wandered back at dusk, bone-tired, the moon

 

perched on a blue shoulder of sky.  Then the mare lay down, sweating and trembling, on her straw in the stable.

 

The drowsy, heavy-bellied cows surrounded her, waiting, watching, snuffing.  Later, when even the hay slept and the shaft of the plough

 

pointed south, the foal was born. Hours the mare spent licking the foal with its glue-blind eyes.  And the foal slept at her side, a heap of

 

feathers ripped from a bed.  Straw never spread as soft as this.  Milk or snow never slept like a foal.  Dawn bounced up in a bright red hat,

 

waved at the world and skipped away.  Up staggered the foal, its hooves were jelly - knots of foam.  Then day sniffed with its blue nose

 

through the open stable window, and found them - the foal nuzzling its mother, velvet fumbling for her milk.  Then all the trees were talking

 

at once, chickens scrabbled in the yard, like golden flowers, envy withered the last stars.