She was for sale: a black bay Arabian mare and I was looking for a beginner lesson horse. Tacked up when I arrived, I led her to the mounting block, held the reins a bit too tight, poked her with my toe as I stepped into the stirrup and then dragged my leg over … Read more
Writing Stable Relation, my first book, took me sixty years, give or take. Okay, I exaggerate, but I had anxiety about wanting to write it almost that long. When I finally sat down, stopped wishing and started doing, it was only a year to write and another year to edit. It was heavy work, every … Read more
Jerk out the fencing staples and carefully pocket them, leave nothing in the dirt. Pull the sagging wire fence free and drag it to open ground. Fold a few feet of the end over, stepping it flat, and make another fold, untidy as a fitted bedsheet from the clothesline. Reset posts as needed, unroll … Read more
We became strangers. I thought I knew her so well; that place just back from her ears where her mane flips to the other side. Her slow half-closed eye resting in speckled shade, head low to the flank of a gelding. Her outline in moonlight blue at the night feed, the horse from my … Read more
The sunset plays me. In the heat of the day, colors are flattened by glare and searchlight bluntness, work taken on, tasks finished. But when the sunset looks at me sideways, flirting through the clouds, changing expression in each instant, I come stumbling out on the porch, fumbling with my glasses, my camera, knowing … Read more
Long in the tooth, people say. Gray hairs dusting his temple, this gelding plays the part of good uncle, passers-by tickle his nose to show their familiarity, unaware of of the memory that kind of touch brings this stoic gelding who remembers too far back, too sad a time. Past his prime, people say. … Read more
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 … Read more
His swayed back so warm in the late afternoon but he doesn’t lie down. His shoulders bear his weight without rest. When predators come, he can’t be helpless to run, not that his buckled knees could carry him far. He ambles in for his dinner alfalfa, belly soft, and while the other horses tuck … Read more
The draft horses galloped out of the barn and down the fence line, stood on their hind legs, pawing the air with teeth bared, then threw their heads down, stretched low to nip at each other’s hooves as the thunder whispered to a boom. Flashing violence, the clouds blew the sky a greenish purple, … Read more
One draws attention, standing by a tolerant gelding and playing the horse whisperer, tickling withers, teasing his whiskery muzzle. Passive violence in the guise of a scratch, demanding an involuntary response ripped with conflict, pulsing with agitation. One demands sweaty perfection, the mare never exactly good enough, but rewarded at last, one ringing slap, … Read more