The Wind Whisperer

This place is dark now. I hear the small sighs and knickers of those here with me. Fear is lessened in the deep silence of the night. And yet the smell is still rank, fear mixed with mud and mud mixed with the water of those caught and terrified beyond what they have known; beyond what I have known. I find my eyes heavy from exhaustion and a torpor that overcomes me after wild desperation. You might wonder what I mean. You may look at me thinking, what could I know but that which is expected. You might just see a wild horse, now captured, held by these bars.

Maybe you're listening through the darkness. Maybe you are listening beyond this veil that shrouds our past. Maybe you can just make out our thick shapes and our noses that now press into bars and each other. You see progress, and you see management and protection of that which you have come to value above the wild and free. But do you see me? Do you see my soul and what I was? Let me whisper this story to you. Let me show you my soul and perhaps you will understand my story. Perhaps you will give me an ear, a piece of your heart always to hold mine.

Let the darkness fade now...

I was born on a warm spring day, the breezes gently caressing my face and the sun rays warming my back still drenched in my own birth. My mother nuzzled me and licked me and I struggled to open sleepy eyes and peer out into this magical new place. I had known only cozy darkness and this light was golden and bright. And when I finally came to, I could feel the life blood surge in me. I worked with all might to find my feet under me, to find my hooves stable and sure in this place. I slowly drank of nourishing milk and took in the affection and tenderness of soft scented flowers and tiny green shoots and my own mother's sisters who also cared for me.

As a colt, I grew. I stretched and I reached. I played with my cousins and my older brothers. I jumped and I frolicked and I scampered and I pranced. I could kick my legs up behind me and turn at the same time. I was so nimble and I know you would have smiled to watch me grow. As a young stallion, I practiced the regal holding of my head, mane growing now, and imagined when one day I might lead this royal herd. For surely, my mother had whispered in my ear all that was to come, and I watched our leader now, brown and strong, tall and dignified. He regarded me with a serious eye and in that gaze, I felt myself seek worthiness of all that was to come.

I was beautiful, black and bold, shining against the deepest blue sky. I grew larger and more sure, powerful and fearless. My hair was blackest blue in the golden rays of a blazing sun, and fiercest dark against the roiling gray clouds of an approaching thunderstorm. My mane cascaded over my strong neck and between my ears. I developed, graceful and captivating, my muscles rippling with every movement. I danced on solid, sure legs and came to look over so many of this herd, so tall was I. I was wild and I was enchanting. I knew this. I was sure of it. My mother had hoped these things in my foal-hood. She had understood I was birthed from dignity with the blood of the leader himself running in my veins. When I shook my mane, I felt all of my being ripple with it, glorious, gleaming, catching the light, filled with the scents and feelings of who we were on that golden plain.

The day I became the leader was my own transformation, our older leader knowing his days of running ahead were over. He would now run with and I would move to the front of this family of mine.

And now I led them, to find the best places to graze, to find the safest places to give birth, and most engaging of all, the places in which we would run free, our hooves creating a thunder, the ground almost coming alive beneath us, and our motion as one being. Those moments when I felt the surge of something unified in the being of us, those moments when we were free, us and the golden prairie, the deep violet and blue colors, the velvet brown hills surrounding and the rugged and majestic mountains beyond that. They rise high into the sky with snow capped peaks and all was one and we were the motions and the life of all we could see. Even the mountains seemed to watch us, and even the sky and the ground seemed to support and envy us.

My heart beats faster even now to remember those moments, surging as one, my stride so even and exquisite, matching with those with me, thundering the same staccato beat, the drumming of a thousand hooves and the memories of a thousand generations before us; running, galloping, cantering and spurting forward once again in wild abandon. Freedom, air, whooshing, our own wind the song of the prairie and our own hooves the drums that created the energy of the magical spheres and the bright singing stars. Our own creation was the music that echoed deeply from hill to hill and resounded from the mountainsides.

The vibrant plains held our souls and I watched the eager birth and life and even mournful deaths of our beautiful family here. And truly, we are a family, running together, feeling together, and finding ourselves with the sun warm upon us and the breezes carrying our messages one to the other. In the misty winters, we huddled as one and warmed and cared one for the other. We loved and fought. We formed deep bonds one with the other. We have been friends and lovers, brothers and sisters, cousins and grandparents each to the other. The thunderstorms that ripped across our darkened plains called to us and seemed to echo the deep utterances that only we have heard and only we have echoed.

We are the royal ones of this plain, of this place. We are the dignity and the grace that bring everything as one. I was majesty. We were majesty. If you can look at me now, for a moment, with eyes that see true, you might understand this place from which I come, the freedom which comprises my soul, the place that holds the essence of my being.

And now, I tell you of the memory that darkens all of this, the memory that has stolen those verdant valleys and golden plains. I will tell you of that which has stolen my luster and torn me from all I know.

This day, I led my herd to a pasture full of succulent shoots and tender grasses. We nosed amongst the tiny shrubs to find them. We felt the sun warm on our backs and our young happily played and frolicked next to us and between us. Now there came a whirring as I hadn't before heard in my life.

And a bird, a large and ungainly bird seemed to come from the skies, from nowhere in particular. It wasn't and then it was, beating the air with a frantic chop and rasping a hoarse and unnatural growl. I didn't understand this creature and had no recollection of its being. I felt something spring inside of me that warned me this wasn't a creature of the plains and as the whirring bird came closer, I felt the fear of my herd and heads were raised and eyes widened.

I nickered and then screamed, and my herd began to follow me in a desperate run to escape this bird that had widened and enlarged as it reached our grazing field. We ran but the bird was faster. We galloped with our hearts beating and crescendoing, but still, we were outrun by this horrible beast. And then I realized we were being guided, not hurt, but guided in a large curve and a round trail not of our choosing. I felt myself veering when I wished to go straight. I felt the fear rise in me, palpable and tangible, a sour taste filling my tongue. I felt myself unable to create a way of escape for those I loved and watched over. I felt my head go white and empty in the terror of what seemed to happen.

We were being run, and I was no longer the leader, the stallion, the champion of all of my herd. I turned when I wanted to go straight. To go straight was to run into this horrible beast of black and chopping anger. I felt it would consume me and so I turned and my herd with me and we thundered and shied and bucked this way and that to follow round to stay away from this bird that moved erratically and angrily. I felt myself plunge into my fellows and I felt myself knock over one of the foals. I felt this anger in that I couldn't protect and was even adding to the horror and hurt of this moment.

And now we are run towards this place that has strange shapes and projections out of our prairie grass. I watch it with half a mind as I am run towards it with all the fear and terror pulsing in my breast. We are no longer running as a herd, but our number has thinned to this pulsing line, this trajectory straight towards these rails that rise out of nowhere. And there is an opening, either side a rusted and angry red. I find myself veering out of sheer panic for these jaws that open to swallow us and yet as I veer, those behind me are run straight towards these places and I realize the angry black bird has come once again to my side to push me towards this gaping iron mouth.

I don't remember much after that. I imagine I grew numb and acquiescent. I suppose I hoped that there was a place of escape beyond this narrow place we had been forced into. But here, there were spaces and places that were wider and we tried to nuzzle and feel each other out. Were we safe? The fear was so potent, staining and creating this awful stench in this place. I realized that not all of us were here. Had half of my family been left in that golden place that seemed so distant now?

And then I realized, the black bird was gone and now coming towards these spaces surrounded by angry rusted bars, were humans with jeers on their faces and tightened jaws. They held a stick that seemed like a snake, straight and humming a dangerous tune. They shoved that snake towards us and I realized it bit and stung my flank. I neighed and realized my eyes were rolling back in my head. I was terrified and I had no way to calm those who were with me. I felt my ability to lead and be strong, ripped from me in those moments of humiliation and instinctive reaction. I felt myself complacent and eager to do whatever it took to release me from this horror of these straight men with their thrusting motions and their angry biting snakes

Days have slowly gone by now and I find myself hungry and mollified. My coat has grown lackluster and my mouth dry and quiet. No longer do the smells of the prairie and the wild flowers their fill my senses. Instead I breath in this deep shame and indignity. I can barely feel let alone communicate with those few who are left from my family. I find myself in a weak moment of quiet, wondering if the hills still would still sing the sound of our herd, if the grasses still wave and shimmer under the golden sun, if the heat of a thousand skies and the elegance of majestic mountains still remains. I wonder if I will run again and if I will feel the wind under me and my hooves pounding the fragrant earth…



Only you can answer this question for me...tell me, will I yet again, run, free? answer this question for me...tell me, will I yet again, run, free?