The Hoofprint

They say either the Prince of Darkness or the Prince of Orange

left this omega notched or etched in the hump of rock,

a lucky horseshoe for the miners hiking to the Cripple Shaft

to dig lead for the mineral lord and the lord of the soil

 

to squabble over. Me, I think some joker carved it for a rake,

chiselled it into Cowrie’s Craig for poets and gullible souls

and now, like its folk-referents, the incised graffito won’t shift

from its outcrop, despite the acid rain, despite erosion.