Relaxed & Forward Blog

Photo & Poem: Ice

Clouds fell to the ground in a fog, the air dense as mud forcing the sun dark early, resting so...
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Photo & Poem: Stetson

Sweat-stained pinch front Stetson, the flat color of sand, perched over straight eyebrows. I asked after the swayback sorrel grazing...
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Photo & Poem: Thanksgiving

We’d be grateful for a kind winter. If that works out, maybe a sweet season of green grass, probably not...
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Photo & Poem: Old Bones

  A night so frigid the snowstopped at midnight, the farmdark under thick clouds. Hetakes a shallow breath, hopingto warm...
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Photo & Poem: Moonlit

The path north to the barn, icy mud slick with decomposing leaves, as a spent season slips away under the...
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Photo & Poem: Soft

Hands go soft, give him his head. The red gelding wants to be braver than he is, shaking his neck...
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Photo & Poem: Ghost

  Her big sister won a contest, sharing breakfast with minor horse celebrities, so this shy red-haired girl with glasses...
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Photo & Poem: Respite

Caramel and blond, a mare as beautiful as she is wildly alert to every sound, brittle bravado searching for control...
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Photo & Poem: Other

  Stalking each other, the pale color of prairie straw, she should be a coyote but her tail has short...
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Photo & Poem: Scream

  Her small exhausted body wobbles, too frail to run on uneven hooves, no energy to eat. Don’t call her...
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Photo & Poem: Boundary

  Dim light elongates in the lavender dusk, boundaries soften to faded nuance. Barn horses bolt at an inaudible sound,...
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Photo & Poem: Colic Weather

Unsettled in-between days, a musty fog slows the sunrise, flannel jacket zipped-up for early chores. The chill is a relief...
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Photo & Poem: Dignity

If only she was more demure, that her words had come with a coy smile, eyes dropped to her sunken...
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Photo & Poem: Sanctuary

Moving like a newborn, narrow body swaying on spindly legs, but stumbling on hooves so long that you must push...
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Photo & Poem: Cold Front

A flannel barn shirt buttoned but resisting a jacket, feeling as uneasy as the horses, hay blown wide, flighty hooves...
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Photo & Poem: Counterfeit

  The herd stands close as the midday heat saturates the air, shadows black on the earth, their bodies held...
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Photo & Poem: Counterfeit

  The herd stands close as the midday heat saturates the air, shadows black on the earth, their bodies held...
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Photo & Poem: Beginnings

  Dream Horse He’s midnight black with steely eyes, on hooves so light they make no sound as he sails...
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