Conclusion of the Visions Day.

This is some of what has come from my "Visions Day". Keep in mind that they are set in different periods of my life.

I can feel the fur against my bare toes. I reach my face to the sky and feel the rain dripping down my cheeks. My hands feel the wisps at the end of her mane. I close my eyes to the day and find the peace inside of myself. My girl slows to a stop and reaches her nose around, I reach down with my eyes still closed and find a moment to stroke her face. There is no amount of time here, so that moment could have been five minutes or a half an hour, but I know that I had that moment completely embraced. The breeze touched my face once again and we were plodding through the valley land of Tennessee. The thud of her hooves put my heartbeat to pace and we found each other in the day.

This used to be fiery chestnut mare is carrying me slowly through the barnyard. My senses are calm, my eyes are relaxed, I feel her long mane and feel her at last. For just a moment, I think “Maybe it would be okay…” We start up into a trot and I feel my breath taken away. I love this girl, I have since I was young, but I lost my trust in her a long time ago. Soon we will be flying across the whole land, I know she’s just as happy as I am to find us again.

I feel her wavy black mane in my hands, her head carried high with excitement. I rub her neck once again to give her that comforting feeling. She has her eyes wide and her ears up. Although she is nervous with the environment around her, trailers and horses alike,  her curiosity drives her forward. I bend her once, then twice, in each direction. She listens to me and when we are off, she wants to trot. The hardest thing for her is to walk in the back, but I ask her to anyway. This mare has come so far.

We stand together in under the tree, as if we were hand in hand. My arm is laying over her back and her head is turned slightly in my direction. We have nowhere to go, not much to do, and no worries in the world. This is just how I like it, when the sun shines through the branches and dapples the earth and my girl’s back. She rests her head in my hands and leaves it there for a moment. I don’t think about what will happen soon, or all the times that I will miss. I know that we will be together forever, and even if she leaves this earth I will hold a piece of her with me. She will never be forgotten.

Her head swings to my right and she throws it up in the air. Her forelock flings above her ear and behind it, staying there in a feathered gesture. I jump to the left and she does with me, then pivot and begin to run from her. Her hooves follow close behind and off to my right. I stop in an instant and so do the sound of her hooves, trailing back fast with me. I look up at the mare who used to scare the hell out of me and smile. She reaches down to touch my shoulder and I reach up with my hand to allow her to sniff it. It is a gesture I use everywhere when with horses- as if I am offering the slight kiss of the backside of my palm and asking for the kiss of their soft muzzle in return.

A black, wavy tail streams back behind the magnificent creature as she streaks past me. I smile at her speed, going off and then turning quickly when I lean to the right. She faces me with her neck arched and ears forward- it is a slight challenge, but also a question. I jump backwards and she jumps forwards toward me. When I move my left leg to the right, she moves her right leg to the left. I point, swing, then tag a spot from far away and she goes flying off again. No matter how far away she is, I know that she is connected to me. I laugh at her and watch the look on her face go from playful to full of joy with my approval and satisfaction. When she comes into me, I stroke her forehead where the star is just beginning to grow.

I step forward in the muck and look around at the hideous sights. There are a few dead horses laying in the field from what I can see, and I am sure that there have been others here as well. There are probably twenty that are all bunched together in this three acre pasture, not allowed to be free. I cannot spot a blade of grass around- they have scavenged the ground for any sight of food. Most are looking as if they will live, but there is one who looks too thin. There are about 15 trailers behind me, all with people that are looking on in horror. I was the first to step forward, much against some of their will. A girl should not know more than they- but I know that I will be the best to enter. I know these horses, no matter if they are strangers. There is one black filly in the very back of the herd, hovering just off of it. The look on her face is not terrified or desperate or scared, but instead gone. She has no expression, she has no spark to her eyes, and she has no fear or wonder of whether or not she will live. It looks as if she has given up the fight to live. As I come through the crowd of starved horses  that are too tired to flee without much space to anyway, I realize that she is probably only six months old. I continue looking back at this filly, most likely an Arabian. Even though Arabians tend to be on the thinner side, no horse should ever be this skinny. Not a tear slips from my eyes as I approach her slowly, using all of my body language without even needing it. She is so gone that she would not notice if there was an explosion in the woods next to the house. Anger boils in my throat, but I know better than to let it explode. I send it back down to the pit of my insides before it can burn for too long and get out of control. I reach forward with one hand and realize that it means so much to me that she wouldn’t move. I touch her roughened shoulder, stroking it with all the love I can muster from inside of me in this situation. I feel a surge of energy, of The Thing Without a Name. This is the one we must take home. I look back at my mom, still standing at the fence line, and nod. She knows that I have picked. That day of trailer loading is the most horrid thing I have ever seen, with the horses walking out of their land of filth and many of them waking from their long hibernation that was their attempt to live longer. The mare that I have picked is loaded onto our trailer. Whether she will be taken to the quarantine area or back to our farm is past me, but I know that she is mine. She has a little spark on her forehead and looks as if in any other situation, she would be the deepest black you have ever seen. Right here, I see that her coat is dead and covered in dust and dirt. Whether or not she will live is a question. I do not worry about it now, but only know that I have picked. She will be home with us, even if it takes everything.

My bare feet pad down a dirt path that is edged by a white picket fence. Wild flowers bend over the fence, reaching out to me. There is grass reaching toward the sky in the two fields next to me. I look back and see a simple, beautiful little house. Its roof planes upward to the sky, not reaching out to the land. It looks as if it has been drawn from the hand of the architect- from my hand. Windows span across the back and sides. Stone reaches up the walls, spanning out across it. A small secret garden hides on the side of the house, edged by wood planking that shuts out everything there. I turn to face forward again, approaching a small barn with a tree standing to its right. There is an old fashioned water pump and concrete trough next to the small barn. One yellow bench sits in under the tree, which holds a small girl- about 12 to 13 years old. She holds her chin with her hand, looking both into the stall and out over the land behind it. The barn is a very light color with a yellow tint and holds light green trim. One gelding stands in the stall, a large horse that has a bandage all down his leg. His paddock stretches out a little ways from his barn and holds grass green enough to feed any horse. I walked forward and saw the girl withdraw her head, looking away from me. I walked over to the horse nonchalantly, just standing against his stall window. He drew his head away from me, so I did the same. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the girl watching in awe. I looked back over to the horse and at the same time felt his nuzzle on the back of my hand. This horse had not touched anyone since he had arrived here. His battle scars had been so terrible that I had kept him in one of the stalls closest to the house. I opened the small door next to it and scratched the small pony that shared the stall and paddock with him. They had become good friends, and surprisingly enough, the large horse from an abusive background was very gentle with the pony. I looked back at the girl again and sighed. I did not know her story, but knew that it must be hard. I offered the kiss of my hand to the horse, and he gave me a kiss back with his muzzle. With this one last gesture to him I stepped away and walked down the next path to the next barn which held another broken horse. The fields around were mostly empty with the occasional small herd from two to three dotting a pasture. With the next hill that I walked down, I found another small barn of another color and style. There were two large stalls here, each holding another horse. I walked forward and sat on the moss rock that stood next to this light gray barn. A darker blue color trims the edges and accents on the barn. Two beautiful Arabians, both still skinny, stand in each stall. These paddocks are larger but still covered in lush grass. I sigh while sitting on the rock and cross my legs in the odd way I do- one leg over the other. I hold my chin and rest my cheek against my fingertips while looking into the stalls of these two horses and out to the fields, hills, and mountains past them. The footsteps that approach are vague and my conscious mind does not register that they are there until the girl sits next to me on the rock. I look over at her, slightly shocked that she would take the step forward to me. There are some kids that will, but she seemed much more… gone than the others have. I smiled at her faintly, really trying to be able to smile. My hand reached out to her shoulder but paused in the middle o fth eair, halfway there. She looked at my hand, slightly puzzled. The first words I heard uttered from her were, “I thought you were supposed to be smooth and know what to do.” A slight chuckle escaped me and I shook my head. We sat there for a while looking out at the sky, at the woods behind, at the mountains, at the feels, at the hills, and at the beautiful horses. This is where I held her hand. We were here together and nowhere else. There was no other world out there, it seemed. For me, the world was gone except for the paradise that I had created.

I hold this wet creature in my arms. It is so small, like I have never seen before. I am careful to hold it delicately as it seems so frail. It breathes evenly and heavily, tired by the great feat it has just pulled. I reach over and touch his mamma, glad that she was here to keep me strong. I stroke her side as she breathes hard and pay no attention to the other people that surround.----The foal follows me in the field without rope. He whickers to me from behind and I touch his neck. Picking up a trot, he follows me closely as if I were his own mother- I am. His mother died shortly after his birth and he adopted me as his own. Once we reach the top of the hill, I sit cross legged in my odd way as I so often do. He stands beside me happily, eating grass along the way. I smile and then go so far as to laugh at the sky which does not understand what we hold between us. This little chestnut colt holds something with me that I have never known before, that is different from all of the rescues that I have held before. He has no past, but a present and a future. I reach up and cradle his chin. He reaches and nips my shoulder, so I reach up and “nip” his with my hand. I pick up my stick and begin to play with him beautifully. This foal, at only a few weeks, plays with me more connected than most horses have. I swing my head back to the sky, open my arms to the world outstretched and laugh. He looks out at the land below us with the most beautiful and contented look on his face. I cannot tell anyone how peaceful and excited this look is at the same time. Just wonderful.----We power surge forward, me using his strong legs to fly. Lifting off with his front legs, I look forward and to the left. We both fly, his ears forward and my eyes closed now. I drop the reins and let my hands stretch out to the sky. We lift off completely and jump the 4’6” oxer with beauty, poise, and joy. His front legs stretch forward once we pass the height of the jump and the moment the tips touch the grass below us, it freezes. I see a bird fly out of a tree in slow motion, I watch the tips of his ears continue to reach forward, hear the held breaths of those people who are surrounding. I close my eyes and look out again with a smile, happy to be here, more than happy to live this. After a few beats of canter afterwards I open my eyes once again to what heaven must be, but knew very well that I was still alive. I reached down with my hands now and rubbed my horse’s neck with one on each side. He did not have a bridle through this jump. The bridle he had worn  was one of the few things I had ever built to break on purpose.