outliers

Horses dot these wide-open plains
from which bold mountains rise to meet
thick brooding clouds, and springs
boil into river deltas meshed
entwining like vascular beds
and rainbursts, like their mother ocean
breaking into spray against serrated shores,
have driven the herds of ponies into
huddled clusters, leaning downwind,
matted flank to matted flank for warmth. Even after storm clouds lift they stay together, all pressed close - except
for one or two. There's always one, at least,
that breaks away - a lone horse wandering, grazing, straying from the herd,
attentive but aloof. There's always one
outlier. What I wonder, want to know,
each time I pass another herd
is whether they take turns, does each horse
have a day to outlie?
Or are some of them always the outliers,
the satellite dots, the little lone explorers,
peripheral to the herd - sooner hunted,
sooner frozen, sooner fed,
slightly more wild?