St. Peter’s Stable by Arthur Greenan
A rickety lorry trundled
A nickering horse did cry
In two short hours a’coming
A life would surely die
Sprang open then, a golden gate
Stood noble, Jean and Clyde
In cantered old grey Bobby
Saint Peter by their side
A lonely lad stood waiting
A space descends his heart
On the windswept moor, she did appear
A sculpted work of art
His mind and soul were lifted
Forty years had passed
A flaxen welsh cob filly
His life returned at last
Yet still that man stood hoping
Will Bobby return to me?
‘My man’ said Pete
‘I need a groom….. For all eternity.’
This poem tells of Bobby the old dappled grey horse whom I drove on the farm at Tranent, East Lothian, Scotland,52 years ago. I was fifteen years old as was he. A year later a lorry appeared and Bobby disappeared forever. I missed him all those years then, one day in 2002, in windswept Aberdeenshire, I stumbled upon Jenny, a
20-month old, flaxen haired, Welsh cobxIrish draft chestnut filly. Some things are meant to be.