It was very difficult to choose a favorite among these, for there are many quite marvelous poems.  I chose "Celebration: Birth of a Colt" by Linda Hogan, because of its sparce beauty.

 

Celebration: Birth of a Colt

 

When we reach the field

she is still eating

the heads of yellow flowers

and pollen has turned her whiskers

gold. Lady,

her stomach bulges out,

the ribs have grown wide.

We wiat, our bare feet dangling

in the horse trough,

warm water

where goldfish brush

our smooth ankles.

We wait

while the liquid breaks

down Lady's dark legs

and that slick wet colt

like a black tadpole

darts out

beginning at once

to sprout legs.

She licks it to its feet,

the membrane still there,

red,

transparent

the sun coming up shines through,

the sky turns bright with morning

and the land

with pollen blowing off the corn,

land that will always own us,

everywhere it is red.

 

 

Niatum, Duane, Ed. Harper's Anthology of 20th Century Native American Poetry.  San Francisco: Harper & Row.  1988.  (Source not listed, but this poem may have come from Hogan's book of poetry, Seeing Through the Sun.)