“Tornado Warning in Horse Country” by Emma Hine

Credit: Skip on Flickr.com

Emma Hine’s debut poetry collection, “Stay Safe,” is a dreamy, haunting exploration of love and loss. Her poems wander between the literal and the esoteric, loosely drawn together by a narrative that ebbs and flows throughout the book. At its heart is the story of a family who suffers a string of tragedies — some dramatic and surreal, others intimate and benign.

“Tornado Warning in Horse Country” is a stark, tender poem introducing the mother of the family. She is referenced in later poems too — perhaps a younger, less burdened version of her — but this poem’s grim revelation lingers like a dark cloud through those lighter moments, just as grief itself can color our everyday experiences.

The MRI revealed our mother’s skull

a halo, the growth a drop of water

that may not splash.

 

This was the time of year when the wind plucked roofs

off well-built houses and left their inner workings

exposed to the sky.

 

She taped on the fridge a list

of everything she thought she hadn’t taught us:

 

Expect sometimes to be lonely.

Take care of each other.

Don’t live too much in the past.

 

She stood us in the mirror and showed where they would cut. Through her new buzz, her finger left a path like someone lost in wheat.

*

If it comes to it, my father said,

people will let out their horses.

 

My imagined filly was terrified,

her lungs rioting on wet pink wings.

 

He said, They’ll run for ditches and gullies.

They know how to survive.

 

I’d already read the books that end,

beloved pony gets loose in a storm,

breaks a fetlock, mercy, bang.

 

After this the girl is never quite the same.

 

We drove on and watched for corkscrews

in the heavy line of clouds, him with his dear promises,

me with my selfish almost-thoughts:

 

maybe someday I’d have horses to let out,

would they find a low place for safety,

would I find them after,

would they be wounded somehow,

could I perform the kind and terrible thing?

Hine shifts between looking at the moment head-on — “she stood us in the mirror and showed where they would cut” — and meandering through anxious daydreams, seemingly removed but ultimately still tethered to the fear and grief she’s feeling.

The imagery of horses running to safety in a tornado feels like an ethereal escape, a sort of fairytale; it gives us the sense that we’re hiding from the mother’s situation by pivoting to this surreal, unrelated fantasy. At the same time, the cancer and the tornado may be one and the same. The girl feels awe and dread for the horses’ imagined fates just as she must for her mother’s.

Poet Emma Hine
Credit: Molly Walsh (emmahine.com)

Hine explores love, death, family, and grief with curiosity and gentleness in “Tornado Warning in Horse Country” and throughout her collection. “Stay Safe” is a worthy read for anyone interested in the strangeness and beauty of loss.