I would show you the adolescent Canada geese
on the pond. Better behaved than we ever would
have been, they stay close, like Catholic school girls
in prim uniforms between their parents in church.
We would give them names like Cecelia and Mary
Margaret and Bridget, us standing by the donkey,
scratching his ears and thinking the other was smart
and beautiful and funny, without recognizing our
similarity. Then, I’m walking your memory back home
from the far side of one day and you’re walking mine
back from the next. So unwilling to part that we try
to make peace with the constant wanting of ordinary
time, by holding the other’s voice in our ears along
with a small ache; the price paid for the utter luxury
of a friend who shares the same moon, sunrise or
twilight, while caring for horses who will never meet.
…
Anna Blake at Infinity Farm
Want more? Join us at The Barn, our online training group with video sharing, audio blogs, live chats with Anna, and so much more. Or go to annablake.com to subscribe for email delivery of this blog, see the Clinic Schedule, or ask a question about the art and science of working with horses.
Beautiful, so captures the feeling of friends from other places. How we share feelings & experiences, even though we’re many miles and years away.
Thanks, Susan. Exactly.
Awww…thank you. I felt like you wrote that to me even though I’ve never been there…loved being there in my heart, just talkin’ about our Dodgers.
Sigh. Thank you, Michelle. Our Dodgers.
ah, lovely, especially as your friends are spread all over the world, not just next door!
It’s the good news and the bad news. Living next door to you probably won’t happen again, but I’d love more time at your kitchen table. Thanks, Emily.
Oh, Anna, what can I say ? I run out of adjectives to describe my response to your poems and blogs ! This offering is wonder-full. I have friends near and far, and I know you do, too ! And while you and I aren’t exactly friends in the strictest sense of the word perhaps, right? Yet I was imagining that some Barn gals and I would be visiting you and stroking long ears and talking and laughing and hating for the time together to end!
Oh, wouldn’t that be fun? Sometimes I feel like I miss my friends more than I get to be with them… I need to ship some in!! Thanks, Sarah.
It is bittersweet sometimes to have bought and created a space for my horses and myself, and the “faraway friends” will never share this spot with me. Thanks for capturing some of that feeling long enough to put it into words !
This is a bittersweet comment, I hadn’t thought about this but I feel like the horse life can be a kind of solitary thing when we keep them at home. It can be hard, as we said, to find local like minds for trail riding, but even just visiting. Thanks, Sarah, and sorry for the bittersweet!
It’s the smell and touch that I carry, of my old friends who shared life with me.
Beautiful comment, Therese.
Made me think of friends no longer here. Loved it. ❤️
Sigh. I hadn’t thought of those who have walked on. We’ve loved some wonderful people, haven’t we? Thanks, Rys.
Your words made me think of a friend who I didn’t know was a true friend until we moved six states away from each other. Better to know now than to never know. But I miss her.
Thanks for jogging the memories Anna.
It’s strange sometimes, how we find out. For me, it isn’t usually who I expect either. Thanks, Sandy