enlightened horsemanship through touch

A poet doesn’t have to be greatly lauded, read at national events or in schools around the world, or even write in verse. If the lyrical beauty of his words strikes at the heart of the reader, then, to my mind, he is a poet. Even better if his subject matter lies close to my heart.

Have you ever read White Horse Pilgrim?

Each of his blog posts is suffused with such evocative poetic elegance that to read them is to be present, in his heart and in the Vale of the White Horse, munching hay with Doru, loving him and the land as Julian does. One gets the impression that they are written without laboring over the words, straight from the mind to the keyboard. Would that we all had such a talent of the heart.

For your reading pleasure during National Poetry Month, I offer you the following posts from White Horse Pilgrim’s beautiful blog. I suggest taking a cup of tea and a few minutes to read as much of his blog as you can. It is a real pleasure.

Return to Wether Down

Breathing

Taking Any Route

The Guide’s Tale

Simplicity and Chivalry

The hooves of horses!
Oh! witching and sweet
Is the music earth steals from the iron-shod feet;
No whisper of lover, no trilling of bird,
Can stir me as much as hooves of horses
Have stirred.

~Will H. Ogilvie

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our series on National Poetry Month. There are two more days left to post your poetry in your blog and link back here to Enlightened Horsemanship Through Touch or to post your poetry here for our collective enjoyment. Go ahead–take a risk!!!! Thank you!

© 2009 enlightened horsemanship through touch

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Somewhere in time’s own space
There must be some sweet pastured place
Where creeks sing on and tall trees grow
Some paradise where horses go,
For by the love that guides my pen
I know great horses live again.

~Stanley Harrison

© 2009 enlightened horsemanship through touch

If you like what you have been reading, please subscribe to the RSS Feed, and visit Bloggers Choice Awards to vote for Enlightened Horsemanship Through Touch.

What delight
To back the flying steed, that challenges
The wind for speed! – seems native more of air
Than earth! – whose burden only lends him fire! -
Whose soul, in his task, turns labour into sport;
Who makes your pastime his! I sit him now!
He takes away my breath! He makes me reel!
I touch not earth – I see not – hear not. All
Is ecstasy of motion!

~James Sheridan Knowles, The Love-Chase

© 2009 enlightened horsemanship through touch

If you like what you have been reading, please subscribe to the RSS Feed, and visit Bloggers Choice Awards to vote for Enlightened Horsemanship Through Touch.

Where in this wide world can man find nobility without pride,
Friendship without envy,
Or beauty without vanity?
Here, where grace is served with muscle
And strength by gentleness confined
He serves without servility; he has fought without enmity.
There is nothing so powerful, nothing less violent.
There is nothing so quick, nothing more patient.

~Ronald Duncan, “The Horse,” 1954

Poems, please!

Look back at our struggle for freedom,
Trace our present day’s strength to it’s source;
And you’ll find that man’s pathway to glory
Is strewn with the bones of the horse.

~Author Unknown

Broken bones
To
Broken dreams

To ride no more
With the wind

We cage them up
To pace
On dirt

And then we wonder

The piles are endless
By the barn
In the yard
With no mercy

And the strongest
Yet most fragile
Will never
Be the same again

– Deborah Trendel

A thousand horse and none to ride! -
With flowing tail, and flying mane,
Wide nostrils never stretched by pain,
Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein,
And feet that iron never shod,
And flanks unscarred by spur or rod,
A thousand horse, the wild, the free,
Like waves that follow o’er the sea,
Came thickly thundering on…

~Lord Byron, XVII, Mazeppa, 1818

Even real poets write about horses!

The horses paw and prance and neigh,
Fillies and colts like kittens play,
And dance and toss their rippled manes
Shining and soft as silken skeins…

~Oliver Wendell Holmes

April is National Poetry Month.
You can visit this site to read a poem a day.
Click for a map to find National Poetry Day events in your area.

Most of the poetry I found in a google search on “horse poetry” or “horseback riding poetry” was as bad as or worse than the doggerel I write. There were a few notable exceptions, which I will post here throughout the month.

I challenge you all to write your own poetry about horses: yours, the ones you dream of, whatever. Post it in your blogs and link back here, or feel free to post it here as a response. I can’t be the only one to humiliate myself for all the world to see. Join me!