The Pony Ride

Betsy Joseph

June 27, 2021

When I was five

my mother drove me one morning

 to a small field near the neighborhood stores.

A weathered man, camping there with a pony for the day,

was offering rides for apparently a modest sum

or my mother, ever thrifty,

would not have made time in her day to take me.

Thrilled beyond measure, my heart thundering with wonder

as the man lifted me onto the Shetland pony’s back,

I had visions of riding this brown pony to my brothers’ school

so they and their friends could see me, sitting straight and proud.

Instead, with a rope around the pony’s neck

the man walked us around in a circle.

The pony kept his head down and limped slightly.

The man tugged on the rope with one calloused hand,

a lit cigarette dangling from the fingers of his other.

As we began circling the third time,

the monotonous scenery never changing,

disappointment filled me.

Even at five 

I understood that nothing truly can be gained 

or truly learned by traveling in circles.

One may as well stand in one spot.

I find that still to be true.

Betsy Joseph (Dallas, TX) has poems that have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. Her poetry collection, Only So Many Autumns, was published by Lamar University Literary Press in 2019. Recently she and her husband, photographer Bruce Jordan, published their book Benches, which pairs her haiku with his black and white photography.