#horseprayers

Photo Challenge & Poem: Prolific

  Pray his back is broad, strength needed for the precarious load he bears, the seesaw blessing and curse of a human’s promise and limitation. Let his hoof land true; it’s a grand idea that two different animals

might share a heart, might travel as one. Let trust rise up to settle all doubt, that kindness might lead you to a secret place as intimate as breath and hope. And when many years have…

It’s winter on this tumbleweed prairie. The sun comes up late and flat yellow, without warmth. This dusting of snow will stay on the ground and my hands will stay stiff in my gloves. I hear him before he comes into sight. This bay horse trots as effortlessly as he breathes, a proud cadence, each pair of feet, front and back, landing with sharp unison. A crisp clop, one-two rhythm, perpetual as a…

Photo (Poem) Challenge: Rounded

The whorl beneath a forelock. The velvet comma nostrils. The curve of a neck, the serpentine of a spine. That soft S-shaped swing of a tail, as hooves stride on by. The greeting from an intelligence that encompasses its entire equine body. The arc of a friendship. The swell of affection. The initiation of a spiral that begins as a light caressing curve and ever so gradually comes around in loops…