#marestrong

Photo & Poem: Respite

Caramel and blond, a mare as beautiful as she is wildly alert to every sound, brittle bravado searching for control where

there is none. Not naive, she knows danger lurks. Another mare might resign herself to the unknown, holding herself

deep within but the golden mare cannot. Exhausted adrenaline, if only it was safe. If only she could allow her predator to become her protector.

…

Eyes averted, shuffling an invisible walk. A predator who feels like sad prey, trying to pass for normal, trying to hold balance. It doesn’t fool the mare. She sees it all, distant movements in her periphery or tiny broken parts deep inside of complicated humans; bruised children in aged bodies, splintered intentions colored with anger, brittle betrayed love, or honor abandoned for sake of…

Young mare, on the full-moon night you were born, we recognized one another. It was an awkward kinship of un-belonging, both of us being more like the other than either of us were like our mothers. No baby talk or embraces, we each stood squarely as equals, never anyone's little girl. You're a coppery redhead, eyes ringed with white, a reverse racoon, and your body followed suit before the…

Teaching Your Horse to Relax

The rider said that her mare had an undeniable “rushiness” and was always tense. The mare is five years old and in their first months together, the mare has had good ground manners. She tied and picked up her feet but walking out of the barn, she was way ahead or the rider had to pull her. The mare didn’t know how to stand still and wanted to walk in circles. Sometimes she got pushy with her…

This willful mare will not be owned. She makes choices; her neck softens lower as she turns her ear to me. She smells so familiar that I think it might be my own scent, remembered by those who knew me lifetimes ago. Then the horizon blurs, retreating as the sky lifts us high enough to trot the shoulders of the moon. …. Anna Blake at Infinity Farm Horse Advocate, Author, Speaker, Equine Pro Blog…