Riding through England.

Riding through England.

A Story by Ken Simm.
"

A Confounded letter of what I am.

"
 

I can feel the shape of the earth through her legs, through my back. I can see the high travelling sky above. She is ridden calm through leaf faded green places and we are wishing along with my tuneless whistling. We are come late to our wild walking.

Leaning deep down into hills and lumpy black barrows. Through the light of a forsaken history. The music blood of our England. The evening of an elder world.

We pass an ancient machine cut hedge sharp in its complete agricultural destruction. With Squirrels that chat chatter at each other and at us in turn. Insinuating themselves across the branches in green dark lanes. Sounds of alarm fall away from fright tightened birds. Leading with apparent broken wing away from naked pink blue bulge eyed young.

Hangers of wildlife beech shadow fight both with each other and the evening misted trees held against the whispered day. Telling trails of feathered sighing sink into a failed stone ivy mill and its stilled flow.

We are following the fields of crop yellow, catching our eye, flecked as in evening lit water. We appear over particoloured hills, shadows long behind us. Black painted onto walls and fences with right angled sharpness cutting through both old wood and even older stone.

There is the comedy masque in a crowded farmyard; its actors spitting, sprinting, hopping, flowing apart and calling tantrums to a large, beautiful and bemused chestnut audience. She is velvet deep eyed and always did, whatever, know how and why.

A punctuated gate is hanging onto its useful life with only memories of weary disabled care.

There is a reflected leaded window opening into the inside evening flame and a moth flared suicide. A nail rubber hinged cobwebbed door swings absently. Behind there are glimpses of a motley pied dog foolishly squirming in esctatic loves before its frantic barking echoes down dark, lamp lit corridors. It knows the time wisely and never forgets.

There are lighted window flashes from a table set for a single secret meal. Beginning and ending with the one alone. Loves there that resonate with what was once forever.  Inside glimpses of broken guns for cleaning on bright red rugs and travelling trunks looming still large beneath single meal tables. There are places and partnerships that are sometimes still viable in the shadows from yellow aged hissing lamps.

You can lift your eye to forgotten son's and country bright daughters. Weaned crying and gone from small faded world dead relationships. Ridden away through dreams of an English musical country that never was towards an amber landscape that will never be. Not now in the dead of a ringing fox barking almost night nor then in the crisp break of a bright new morning.

Watch your chestnut gold beautiful mare mixed in this English forever sunset and with you. Centaur skylined across the graded blue sky above the streaked gold.  A mixture of alone but not lonely. 

A shadowed sadly forgetting canter brings you at last along your own reflective pathways, lined deep in memory, following the failing false light to a final home.

© 2012 Ken Simm.


Author's Note

Ken Simm.
My horse was called Autmn. The photograph is Mooey, her son. Again punctuation is intended.

My Review

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Featured Review

Beautiful Ken, you discribe the world so nice through her eyes... you knew your mare well, and she you, now Mooey, is there, to step in her footsteps, this was another painting of beauty, and the bond, that still is there... (it shall never fade away) for horses are as intelligent as people... I enjoyed the two through your words... thank you.

- Elisa

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Ken Simm.

11 Years Ago

You say the nicest things Elisa. Thank you so much.

11 Years Ago

You're so welcome my friend, your quill just touches.



Reviews

Beautiful Ken, you discribe the world so nice through her eyes... you knew your mare well, and she you, now Mooey, is there, to step in her footsteps, this was another painting of beauty, and the bond, that still is there... (it shall never fade away) for horses are as intelligent as people... I enjoyed the two through your words... thank you.

- Elisa

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Ken Simm.

11 Years Ago

You say the nicest things Elisa. Thank you so much.

11 Years Ago

You're so welcome my friend, your quill just touches.
It's hard not thinking of Dylan Thomas (Fern Hill) when I read this..It's a story, I know, not a poem,
but I read the daily newspaper and restaurant menu's like I read poetry, wanting always to find
something close to doctrine, something to love and believe in. Well written Ken.

Your biggest fan,
dana.

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Ken Simm.

11 Years Ago

To be associated with the great Dylan Thomas is beyond good Dana. Thank you is to small a word.
Well. I saved this for last today so that I could give it an appropriate review. And instead. Something touched me deeply in that place where words do not exist - and the raw emotion flooded - maybe I just needed a good girly cry.
There is finality and resolution in this. Striking imagery - the gate hanging on to useful life...the failing false light to a final home. the way the poem breathes - each line a complete exhalation and a drawing in - saturated with color and sound - its beautiful - and I'm scary when I cry...

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Ken Simm.

11 Years Ago

I still cry for my mare. She was special. Although her son is a special idiot. Thank you so much Tam.. read more
What a beautifully visual ride you have takens us on this day my friend. the love between a man and his horse is a silent but loudly reaching affection. Yours shows in this wonderful piece.

Posted 11 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Ken Simm.

11 Years Ago

I lost hr about two years ago now Jack. I now have the pleasure of riding her son. I still miss her .. read more
Jack...

11 Years Ago

I'm so sorry to hear that Ken. I know that bond and I know it had to hurt badly.
Beautiful!

Posted 12 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Ken Simm.

12 Years Ago

Glad you like it Tori. Many thanks.
Missing her....Tant de deuils ... de penser à vous en espérant que vous allez bien. Se souvenir, en se souvenant toujours ...

Posted 12 Years Ago


A poetic welding of the many aspects that are all caught up in the reflections of the horse rider scanning the country around. Quite cannily the words chosen are placed in phrases and sentences that represent the various paces that the horse rides at. do not dare say that this is not deliberate. It is above all your gift for description that leaves readers, such as I am, saying: that guy speaks another language. Some man you are, sir.
ATB
Alex.

Posted 12 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Ken Simm.

12 Years Ago

Ok Alex I won't. Many, many thanks for trawling your way through.
p.s. love the name autumn for a horse...also the name of my gypsy hearted daughter.

Posted 12 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Ken Simm.

12 Years Ago

Her full name was Strathmore Autumn Gold. I think its a lovely name for your gypsy hearted daughter .. read more
Incredibly beautiful horse and story. Reading your work is like watching a fine movie. Line after line of poetry. Excellent ending.

Posted 12 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Ken Simm.

12 Years Ago

You read the story of Autumn's passing. The photo up there is of her son Mooey. Which is Dutch for b.. read more

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1108 Views
20 Reviews
Shelved in 2 Libraries
Added on July 24, 2012
Last Updated on August 2, 2012
Tags: history, horse, riding, equestrian, light, evening, story, memory, love, memoir, countryside

Author

Ken Simm.
Ken Simm.

Scotland, United Kingdom



About
'I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience' Thoreau. For all those who .. more..

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