Book Release! Available Now! Horse. Woman. Poems from Our Lives “It was a tough life if you was useless.” -Leafa Numbers Blake My grandmother proudly claimed she had delivered more foals and calves than any woman in early 1900s North Dakota. Like her, we’ve found a purpose building our lives, sometimes elbow deep in dirt … Read more
Walking the Dog There was a message on my phone. My dog was ready to come home, they said. It was just her ashes, they didn’t say. Never one to be put on a shelf, we took one last walk together around the farm, her cremains, I guess, tucked under my arm. She usually bounds … Read more
She has no time for gentle words and soft hands primping her mane. The broad-chested mare may allow a stiff curry in the itchy season, but she would rather throw herself on the ground to rub the loose hair off on a crust of spring snow and cool mud, leaping in air to gallop away, … Read more
The young visitor stared at the bay mare’s mane. “Would you like to brush her?” I ask. Sending the girl for the grooming bag, I haltered the mare, a visitor to the farm herself. After showing the girl about curry combs and brushing with the grain of the hair, she set to the task … Read more
You had a plan for how this would go when you left home. Longing for a thing different than how it was. Maybe a career or a husband. Maybe the perfect sofa because you wanted to rest, blanket around your feet and a tortoise-shell cat like the one when you were a kid, lounging … Read more
Stomping in the back porch to knock the dirt off my boots, there’s too much wind to work outside on this gray day, clouds hurrying in from the north. I make tea thinking you might be having some about now. Mine has little flavor and the color is wrong. Picking up a book, I … Read more
Leaning on the gate. Checking water tanks at dusk, one last glance at the herd before heading in. Feeling his warmth near, even from the far side of the pen, his muzzle deep in hay. Awestruck, my involuntary response to his beauty. Under my breath, I barely murmur the tall gray’s name aloud but … Read more
Stay outside until the sun is low, reluctant to let the day end, tidying halters, raking loose hay into stalls, dragging my feet. Not ready. Just that this sweet ordinary day, this warm season, will soon be carried off in the wind, gone to seed. Loosening my grip from what I know will be … Read more
Walking wide beyond my grasp, only ask for his eye, now wait. His forelock shelters a glimmer of movement. He’ll take his time, the slow arc of his neck only made sweeter by the distance between us. Proving the existence of things that need no proof is an invisible rope. … Anna Blake at Infinity … Read more
In the dark…
Training/Life
Clouds Fall
Settle.
Seven iced-over winters followed by sweet bugs on long summer days. Flightless old girls with twisted toenails and dim eyes, each year their webbed feet turn a bit more inward, carrying the weight of their front-heavy bodies. Was it a plan? The hens began to answer the barking terrier, marching wing to wing and … Read more