Oz the Great

He should not have lived past birth,
yet he came red-bagged into April light,
lungs filled with stormwater,
already a survivor, already a story.

Sixteen years you carried each other,
through scars and bowed tendons,
through trails that ate miles
and crowds who whispered his name.
He was more than a horse—
he was neon in the gray crowd,
your heart stitched to his stride.

When the world broke you,
you leaned into his mane,
found solace in his goofy lip tricks,
the soft nudge of his Roman nose.
He answered grief with laughter,
wearing it like another blanket,
until even that last day in March
when spring teased the earth awake.

You gave him peppermints,
groomed his itchy spots,
let him graze one last time in the sun.
He, ever gentle, carried your sorrow
as he had always carried you—
a steady weight, a steady heart.

Now the pasture is too quiet,
your hands reach for a halter
that hangs without purpose,
and still you scan the horizon
for the shaggy silhouette that is gone.

But love, once made, does not vanish.
It lingers in hoofprints pressed
deep into your own life.
It lives in every friend who cheered,
every laugh he coaxed,
every field he thundered across.

Run free now, Oz the Great—
legend, companion, miracle.
Run strong through endless fields,
until the day you are called home together,
and grief, at last,
becomes only memory,
and memory only joy.