A prose-poem about the joys of a rider and her horse. |
Horse and Rider A hot snort of air Smelling of half-chewed grass Drifts by my face A thousand burning butterflies Dancing over my arms and senses As the painful-looking twisted Metal bit is taken. Ankles stiff in stiffer boots Almost painful as we walk In silence through the archway Down the well-trod path Until our small procession Reaches the hard-packed earth Bright and dusty, sandy yellow, deep southern red In a curve both to and from The point by which we stand. The command is given From the center of the ring In one swift motion he and I Are joined, for a time, as one My thoughts, nearly seamlessly, Translated to his motions. The ripple of taut muscles, the pounding strength of step, the height, before above my head Sharpen senses ever more Until every blade of grass Is seperate from its neighbor, Every whisper of wind A lion's roar And each of the sun's rays is blinding. I nudge him forward And---oh!---the thrill extends Sharpened senses focus in The world becomes naught but he and I Picking up speed, in stages As dictated by the distant voice Echoing from the ring's center. As each resonating step Increases in speed My pounding heart, too, beats swifter More sure with every moment. Faster and faster till it feels we might fly Only needing a thought from me And he would lift his feet And no longer would we be two creatures of the earth But a single soul in the sky. A feeling of freedom ripples over my skin A cool refreshing breeze A warm, encompassing, consoling blanket of reassurance That this wonderful treasure I've found Upon the back of this magnificent beast Offering up his feeling of freedom Graciously, to share with me. The pounding slows Before I have even realized I signaled as the voice commanded And gradually the focus fades The unity between us Once more master and beast But as he snorts I hear his silent laughter His ears pull back, Not from the tickling of a fly, But from the humor in sensing What the voice has missed That for a time, both he and I Were joined together as one. |