Tag Archives: Horses

The Place Between Us

17 Tuesday Apr 2018

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      I crossed

That field, weeks before the first pass of the blade,

     Through grass and briars, fog–the night itself

to my thighs, my skirt pulled up that high.

(Claudia Emerson, excerpt from Aftermath)

Today, I stood in the south pasture and looked back at the house,

as if it was another life I was seeing from the outside:

the gables, the stone facade, the windows, the aspen.

The palomino came to me there, and seemed of two worlds.

She crossed over the basalt outcroppings,

her hooves crushing the baby grass and buttercups,

like a bold spirit that moved between life and death

and made me wonder, for a moment, which I inhabited,

or what was real, the house, the horse, the wind, my body–

the words I searched for, to say how much I miss you.

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Loping a Horse For the First Time

14 Saturday Apr 2018

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To straddle that fundamental duality is to be balanced: to have one foot firmly planted in order and security, and the other in chaos…” Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules For Life

At first,

They may try to buck,

But give them the reins

And sit deep in the saddle.

Like everything in life,

No guarantees,

We’re all on the bottom peg,

Really,

When it comes to living,

Or dying,

Or even breaking a leg.

Loping a green horse

Isn’t much different

Than falling in love,

Or growing old.

We like to feel alive,

Sometimes,

We like to fly

On the back of a horse

Learning to run,

With chaos on her back.

Unity: Horse and Human Together

05 Thursday Apr 2018

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“Try to figure out some way to understand this thing the horse is so full of, and that he has such a strong desire to get from the person in return. It has to be togetherness. Mind, Body and Spirit is what we’re talking about here.” Tom Dorrance, True Unity

Our shared emotion,

Seventeen of twenty-seven:

Happiness, worry, fear.

What is it, rising up

Like spirit, from your eyes,

Like heaven. An open field,

Where all that matters is love

And connection, knowing

We are safe from what chases,

Knowing we are strong,

mistakes forgotten, and free.

Riding Through a Grove of Aspens

24 Saturday Mar 2018

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The sweeping of our horses’ manes

Showed us the wind, and which way it blew,

But it was the aspens that gave it voice.

Swirling leaves,

Like erratic wings of butterflies,

Shimmered, shook, slapped,

Simultaneously clapping as we passed.

Grace in the grove, the ticking,

whispering clatter of the breeze,

Passing, back and forth, between worlds.

Synchronicity: The Herd

02 Tuesday May 2017

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20170419_211840We must move together,
One mind, one soul,
One body, one purpose,
Says the herd.

We’ll bend our necks
To the ground,
Bite off blades of grass,
Like so: the Mustang,
The palomino mare,
The old sorrel gelding.
See how our heads line up?
Front, right legs forward,
One ear to the herd,
The other to the sky,

And bird sound:
The high pitch
Of the kildeer,
nesting in grass nearby,
The chattering of the geese,
The barn swallows,
returned to their nests,
Above our stalls.

We hear their song,
A composition,
Carried by the wind,
Through pine,
Through aspen,
Through crocus
And snowdrops.

We must move together,
One mind, one soul,
One body, one purpose,
Says the herd.

Beautiful Mustang

21 Thursday Jan 2016

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Beautiful Mustang

Beaty’s Butte, Oregon 2007

Some things survive
Despite capture,
Despite fear.
Like memory,

How it felt
To take those first
Feeble, free steps,
Then stretch your neck
Toward breasts,
And the reward
Of warm milk.

The world was starving,
But some things survived,
Like the smell of sage
When your bodies
Lay down at night
And crushed the stems.
You dreamt of flight,
On strong legs;
You dreamt of rest,
Under the mahogany’s shade.

Some things survived,
Like the smell
Of your dam’s fur in rain,
The smell of her sweat.

The sound of her separation
survived, too,
The calling back and forth
From pen to pen,
Your first real lesson
On what it’s like
To be loved.

That way.

In the way
Of the terrible missing.

Some things survive,
Despite capture,
Despite fear.
Like memory.

beautiful watching may 09

 

Connection

17 Thursday Dec 2015

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12359931_1028927123816394_2292326234560685569_n

Sit deep, deep in the saddle,

Your ankle, hip, and shoulder

A line, that dissects some star

And continues past,

“Where does space end,”

The question your teacher asked

In the fifth grade.

Which is to say, it never ends,

And I can’t help thinking,

I don’t either,

Nor does this horse,

Engulfed in her own heat,

Evaporating into the cold air

Of another December.

What is it about two souls

That makes the one feel alive,

Connected, two dots, through which

A line extends forever,

Pierces a fabric, so thin,

We were together all along,

Though we didn’t know.

 

 

 

Meditation On Touching a Horse

22 Friday May 2015

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You can feel the warm blood

Under his summer coat,

Sun-slick and shiney,

Sweat, that smells of grass,

Which is to say, sweet,

His breathing, his gut-sounds.

Take a moment and trace,

With the palm of your open hand,

From the softness of his muzzle

To the enclave between ears,

Then down along his thick neck,

Under the chestnut of his mane.

Keep sliding your hand along his withers,

To his broad back and belly,

His hips, buttocks, tail.

Take the trust and the quiet

Into your heart

And unfold it over and over

Throughout your day.

Think, grace.

Think, gratitude.

Think, peace.

Hope.

Hog Lake

30 Thursday Apr 2015

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cowboy looking at fishlake

There are dirt roads that bend

‘Round still lakes and extend forever

Atop basalt cliffs, between sagebrush

And serviceberry, balsamroot,

And the periwinkle twinkling of camas blossom.

You can travel down those roads,

But you’ll always be a stranger,

And they’ll always speak a language

You don’t quite understand.

There are dirt roads that pass by waterfalls,

Pouring themselves out,

In radiant rush,

Step by step, shelf by shelf,

Into the calm of Hog Lake,

While the red tails swirl above,

Thinking of fish or water

Or returning to their nests.

You can travel down those roads,

But you’ll always be a stranger,

And they’ll always speak a language

You don’t quite understand.

But travel there anyway

And try to memorize the inflection of bees,

Or the longing in the song of the spring swallow.

Listen for the whisper of grass

Beneath mule deer and coyote.

And, while you’re there,

Send up a prayer of thanks,

A wish, for it to go on and on and on.

hog lake falls

Early Fall Ride: Palisades Park

08 Wednesday Oct 2014

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You should have wished for rain,
But you relished the sun, instead,
And the sweet smell of orchard grass,
In the pinto’s October sweat.
Before you left,
You stood under the bow,
And plucked an apple,
Ripe with the full bloom
Of a long summer.
You held it outstretched
Until all that was left
Was the juice, and the salt
From the palm of your open hand.

You should have wished for rain,
But you relished the sun, instead,
And his slow steps down steep trails,
Adrift of dirt and loose chunks of basalt.
The robin and wren, tree swallows and chickadees,
Flitted among branches of Ponderosa, Serviceberry,
and the Hawthorn with its dangerous nails,
While you thought of nothing but that,
And how your horse’s mane felt in your hands.

Becoming Autumn

06 Monday Oct 2014

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Morning comes late,
And the autumn sun trembles
through Aspen arms.
Didn’t you say,
If the sun didn’t rise,
Or set, there’d be no time?
Yesterday, the eggs were cold,
In a nest of mud, and hay,
And strands from the pinto’s mane;
Such that, even the barn
Closes in on silence.
The family of cats, hunkered down
Behind fresh stacks of alfalfa,
Grow fat on a sudden flush of quail,
And the sun sets sooner now.
At last night’s fire,
You were shocked
At what the old man wasn’t afraid to say.
Later, you laughed at what he’d said,
Talked of the freedom of age,
And the benign closing of our souls.

First try:

The Autumn sun rises late,
Through the arms of Aspen,
Trembling in slow, cool wind.

Second Try:

The late-rising, Autumn sun,
Trembles through the Aspen’s arms,
In a slow, cool wind.

The Worst Thing About Dying

30 Tuesday Sep 2014

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What’s the worst thing, she asked,

About dying?

The stars, I said, As I leave the barn,

My horses, buried nose-deep in Timothy.

The pounding dirt, I said,

The Irish Wolfhound’s lope,

And the dust of her joy.

My children, I said, Their hate of me,

Then, their love of me.

I will miss all of that.

 

What’s the scariest thing, she asked,

About dying?

It ends in dust, I said,

That upon my death, 

I really die. 

That I am finite, and not

Like the stars, 

That all I am, all I know,

All I feel, is less than the dust

Of the stars, I said.

What We’ll Remember

15 Monday Sep 2014

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These
Are the things you’ll remember,
Not the big things.

****

Small, small things:

One leaf touched by the sun,

One small smell.

When we are dying,

I promise you,

The memories you will have,

In your last seconds,

Are about these small things

Touching our skin:

One leaf,

One moment with your child.

Not the big things.

We will remember the small things.

These small things are added

To a fulfilled life,

Or not.

Not the big things.

From “The Path of the Horse” Documentary

Klaus Hempfling

Tammany Creek Road

11 Thursday Sep 2014

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One sorrel horse. Gelding. 

Twenty-two years old.  Grade.

Twelve hundred fifty dollars.

 

Tammany Creek Road, it winds

Through hills as soft as breasts,

Dotted with cows and calves–

Spring days, you see them born,

Dropped to the ground in glistening sacks,

Mama’s licking too calmly, you think,

As their eyes try to focus on a new world.

 

She pulled a rusty 2-horse straight load

Along the road that winds through hills

As soft as breasts, pulled onto the gravel drive,

As steady, and slow, as resolve.

 

Resolve:

I’ve never seen a woman cry so unashamed,

Over a horse, in front of strangers.

I’ve never seen a horse look so long

Up a road, for a woman to return.

 

River Gods

03 Wednesday Sep 2014

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     I do not know much about gods;  

     but I think that the river

     Is a strong brown god –

     sullen, untamed and intractable.

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets: Dry Salvages

 

Nothing makes you feel more alone–

Yesterday’s twenty miles of river

Calculated today, a lifetime.

The hunting bird, you said eagle,

Then, you said Osprey,

It was an Osprey.

Great beautiful white-winged thing

Hunting the Spokane River

For the one that jumps too high,

Makes itself too known,

Dares to release itself

From the swelling under-swell.

 

Listen to T.S. Eliot read Four Quartets.