02 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Canada Geese, Cowboy, Freedom, Hope, Horse, Horse Poem, Horse Poems, Horse poetry, Horses, Life, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Ravens, River, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Spokane, Spokane River, Spring, Survival
We rode dirt and mud,
through standing water,
like ponds, to verify
the sun, and life
of returning things:
Canada Geese, wood ravens,
mule deer, grazing at dusk,
and the river, surging
with the spring run off
of our souls, singing.
27 Wednesday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Courage, Forgiveness, Heaven, Horse Poems, Horse poetry, Horses, Patience, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Prayers, Trust, Wisdom
Each season,
I say a prayer,
not for safety,
because want of safety
is always there,
but for Wisdom;
Wisdom to listen,
and hear
my horses speak
the magic language
of their needs;
Patience, to wait
upon the softness
of their hearts opening to me,
which is the exact part
that starts the journey of try,
without which, there’s nothing.
I pray for Courage,
when they, in communion,
ask me to fly with them,
either on the ground
at their side
or, on their backs,
where I can grip tightly
to Trust,
and Heaven,
and what it means
to be fully alive.
11 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Aging, Cancer, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Fear of Death, Foal, Hope, Horses, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry
My father is eighty,
has cancer,
lives two hours away,
and I worry—
could I get there
soon enough to say
I love him,
should his last moments
come quick, unexpected—
like a foal born in the night
while I’m sleeping,
even though I’d been there
to catch him all day.
23 Saturday Feb 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Coffin Bone, Cowboy, Desperation, God, Gods, Horses, Lame, Miracles, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Prayer, Survival
If you don’t have a hoof,
you don’t have a horse.
He was dead lame,
broken coffin bone,
leg extended out in pain,
as if imploring me to mend
his severed part.
Heart of my heart,
I can only offer prayer,
to the gods who love horses,
as much as we love gods to care.
19 Wednesday Dec 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Falcon, Horses, Irish Wolfhound, Jobs, Life, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Priorities, Ravens, Soul, Spirit, Work
The crippling desk, for six years,
granite topped, and bright
with the computer’s glare,
the tapping of keys,
the winding path of a mouse,
the click, click, clicking,
a sickening tick-tock of life.
Today, I say goodbye,
trade you in for a beautiful chaos,
throw myself to the world,
the raven, the falcon who tried to enter
through the upstairs window,
the horses and wolfhounds,
with their joyful lope and pounding
of the ground, the music, the words,
the gray, but wide-open sky.
09 Tuesday Oct 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Death, Fear of Death, Horses, Life, life after death, Life and Death, Love, Peace, Perception of Time, Poem, Poems, Poetry
There is a fine line,
so skinny, so fragile;
what is,
on the other side,
breathing hard.
A horse can hear,
a deer can hear it,
but we do not,
and we live, mostly,
without fear.
Recently, the paths diverged:
what should have been,
but wasn’t,
what was,
but shouldn’t have been,
and I wonder
if those two ways,
continue in different spheres.
I hear their breathing,
each year, stronger,
and something, like love,
pulling me there.
What is time,
but a rotation under the sun,
a perception of what has been,
a perception of moving
toward what is to come.
28 Friday Sep 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
If you want to find the place
where the horses graze at night,
follow the dark path.
Even when the moon
is covered by clouds,
and there is only the light
of a few dim stars,
follow the black line
as it curves
through the tall brown grasses,
and you will find them there.
18 Tuesday Sep 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Warm September wind, sunshine,
manure drying itself in round piles
you can kick, and dissolve into dust.
The sweet smell of it, the same
as it smelled thirty-three years ago,
at Harold Johnson’s place.
I breathe in memories like air,
close my eyes and see them all
alive again, laughing, telling jokes
about how they want to come back,
when they die, as a young girl’s horse.
Everything is the same.
Everything is completely different.
Yet, more and more, I’m somewhere
between this soft day,
and memories of this soft day
some place else.
17 Tuesday Apr 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
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.
14 Saturday Apr 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Chaos, Death, Feeling Alive, Horse Poems, Horse poetry, Horses, Life, Loping, Poem, Poems, Poetry
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.
05 Thursday Apr 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Death, Fear, Freedom, Happiness, Heaven, Horses, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Togetherness, Tom Dorrance, Unity
“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.
24 Saturday Mar 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
aspen, Aspen Colonies, Aspen Trees, Forgiveness, Horses, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry
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.
02 Tuesday May 2017
Posted in Uncategorized
We 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.
21 Thursday Jan 2016
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Beaty's Butte, Beautiful Girl, Beautiful Mustang, Horse, Horse Poems, Horses, Mustang, mustang poems, mustangs, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Wild Horse Poetry, Wild Horses
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.
17 Thursday Dec 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
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.
22 Friday May 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Animals, Beauty, Cowboy, Eternity, Gratitude, Hope, Horse, Horse poetry, Horses, Meditation, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Spirituality
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.
30 Thursday Apr 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Basalt, Camas, Fishtrap Lake, Hog Lake, Horses, Pacific Northwest, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Red Tail Hawk, Sagebrush, Serviceberry, Spokane, Washington
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.
08 Wednesday Oct 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Autumn, Cowboy, Fall, Hawthorn, Horse Poem, Horse Poems, Horses, Paint, Palisades Park, Pinto, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Ponderosa Pine, Serviceberry, Spokane, Trail Ride
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.
06 Monday Oct 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Abandoned Nests, Aging, Alfalfa, Autumn, Autumn Poems, Barns, Bird Nests, Bird Poems, Horses, Mud Nests, Old Men, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Quail, Quail Poems
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.
30 Tuesday Sep 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Death, Dying, Finite, Horses, Infinite, Irish Wolfhound, Stars, Why Death Scares Us
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.
