the greatest equestrian essay ever

…would begin with the ears, allude to that Arabian Proverb: the wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse’s ears, and describe just how they swivel like antenna watching you, and then there’s the smell of clean leather of the Antares saddle that sits on the stall door, and the smell of sawdust shavings and alfalfa and that scent of their coat that you can’t really describe but you know you want to bury your head into because it so warm and comforting and cozy, and it doesn’t even matter if you don’t ride today because this right here is the heaven they speak about, and you can watch movies like Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron or Black Beauty or Secretariat but none of those cinematic masterpieces will prepare for the wooly perfection that sits in front of you.

The next two paragraphs would move through you smoothly, just as his walk, a four-beat gait, into describing the cold morning air and just how much it kicked up a demon inside your stallion, awakened a need to run, a need to move, much like a person who cannot stay in one place for too long – finds long silences uncomfortable, and bedrest sickness detrimental. The story will still carry on calmly but there is something building, there is a power stirring somewhere in the words that you cannot really decipher quite yet – like a dragon stirring from sleep over their empire of gold and jewels, warm breath twirling up into the cold air and vanishing over and over and over again, and then there might be a sentence or two that provides a reaction, just as the tree your stallion is staring at does, but he doesn’t think it’s a tree, no, it’s a man, or a phantom, or simply just an excuse to stop standing it place, a trip in the brain that just says pull, spin, run. And you’ll try to contain such an animal that is begging to go on, and you might think to yourself, my God, the raw power I see, it’s looking at me, praying that I’ll let go of the rope when it knows it can pull free just as easily…is that control?

The next three paragraphs you pick up speed, just like his canter, now three beats and a moment of suspension, just like the suspension of your breath when he pushes off the ground and over that tree trunk (he fought his fears) and it feels like you’re Perseus riding Pegasus for just a small moment – but there is that sense of control still. The listening in the ears, the eyes, the nostrils expelling breath in a rhythmic sequence – all these in tune with a writer who may lose their breath over the climax of their story, suspended just for a moment above conflict, and they will listen and look and feel and breathe deep to find that crescendo of peace between the words, the small meanings that you might have to read twice to understand.

In this paragraph, is that power – yes, the very one we’ve been chasing, in the form of a gallop, four-beats and suspension, your pounding heart keeps in rhythm and your breath is suspended just like before but this time you don’t fly – no, not like that – but he’s running just like the words onto parchment that are telling such a story, scrambling to form lyrics of entertainment, and have you ever had that feeling? When a story comes so easily to you and the words are flowing from your fingertips and your mind is moving a thousand miles a minute, and you pray at the end you’ll find peace with spitting the conflict and climax and conclusion from your scattered brain, but instead you only want more, and the breath will be quicker now, and so will his, and the only security is a handful of mane in your palm scraping through the skin and drawing blood because you’re clutching so tight, and you’re running, running, flying, there is a moment you might think yourself untouchable, and it is like Ludovico Einaudi’s Experience, where the violins are swelling with dramatics and the piano quickens with the beat of the hooves, and it is a moment of pure freedom and love and realization of your blessing, and you’ll continue to run and it might bring a laugh out of you, and his ears will be pointed straight up to the heavens they swear you can see heaven through, and it’s true, but not in the way you think, no, some say heaven is above us, but on the back of a horse, your destination lies between your horse’s ears and that might be heaven, but then, what if you have no destination? Well, then the world becomes heaven. Your entire world becomes heaven on the back of that horse.

And the conclusion paragraph comes around, and you realize the greatest equestrian essay does not have to be very long, a crop not a whip, and there will be a moment of sadness at the feelings of freedom and erosion of conflict coming to an end, and a moment of joy when you realize when the sun rises on your stallion the next morning, and the dew rests still on grass, and his warm breath cascades gently into the grey and fuchsia skies, you can do it all over again. This was not a one-time thing like losing your innocence when you find out Santa Claus isn’t real or finally standing under the Aurora Borealis in all its clandestine glory, no, no this is like eating at your favorite restaurant again or being revived in a video game when you die, there is no end to this joy. And then, this essay ends with a hint of sadness and hope interwoven – an experience that you do not want to leave, but a happiness that tomorrow the sun will rise, and your stallion will be there to kick up his heels yet again, and your mind will craft another story, and everything will be just as it should.