Falling in love when I was a child

Pretty Thing was my horse. Gay, my sister, created this portrait of her. This special horse lived to be 32 years old. She was two years old when she came to me. 

I fell in love with horses when I was a small child. I liked the way they looked,  they smelled, and I liked the way I felt so high on their backs.

In this poem you read about the first horse I fell in love with.

My Father's Horse  

Stickers tear my legs, bare and tan from summer sun.
Long black braids fly behind me as I sprint
like a Derby winner down the path.

 

Harnessed with hames, bridle, and blinders, Charlie plods down the farm road. Tired and wet with sweat, he's perfume to my nostrils. 

 

My father swings me up. I bury my hands in the tangled mane. My thighs stick to leather and damp white hair high above the ground. 

 

I want to sing in glorious joy,  but only croon a child's nonsensical tune, grinning for a hundred yards between field and barn. 

 

My father's arms are strong.  His hands are gentle. The horse is all we ever share. For he has sons and I am just a daughter.

                      ---Glenda Council Beall

Horses were My First Loves

The horses first become aware of me watching them.

I love a black, and this mare is shiny and well built, but not friendly.

This baby is not yet a year old. I remember when she was born this spring.

Someone needs to groom this lovely horse. Her mane is a mess.

The fine intelligent head and eyes, the curiosity of this mare reminds me of my own horse who lived to be 32 years old.

Horses, horses, horses. I have loved horses since I climbed up on Charlie, the plow horse when my father brought him in from the field. I was a tot back then.
From early childhood I dreamed about owning my own horse one day. We had a horse on the farm when I was around 10 years old. Her name was Daisy, and she was as wide as she was long. Lazy and ornery most of the time, she often let Gay and me lie upon her broad back as she grazed without halter or bridle.

I dreamed of horses when I should have been studying arithmetic as it was called when I was in fourth grade. But I kept my book open to the inside cover where darling children, my age, strolled down a wooded path and one child rode on the back of a black and white pony.

I became that child. I was not cooped up in a classroom. I could smell the horsy odor, hear the birds singing and the children laughing.

Yes, I can’t remember when I didn’t love to be around horses, to drink my fill of their beauty, to feel their power and their gentleness, and to climb upon their backs to ride faster than my own limbs could ever carry me.

Recently I had a chance to capture a couple of mares with their young ones. I wanted to go out and press my face against a hairy neck, to kiss the velvet nose of the little fillies, and to breathe in deep the wonderful aroma of Horse. If you like horses, perhaps these pictures will jog your memory of some horses you remember.