DYLAN

my favorite buckskin, he was solid gold with black points...superb

DYLAN

dylan was a buckskin,
another $100.00 horse,
my husband bought him for me
from billie, the feed mills bookeeper,
he was named dylan
because he looked so much like
matt dylan's mount on tv's gunsmoke

he was 24k gold, like the locket my grandmother gave me,
with a thick black mane and a white blaze on his face
he was big, over 17 hands at the shoulder,
too big for grandmother’s saddle,
the one hand made for her when she was 9
the one i learned to ride on,
the same one that had been handed down from grandma to my mother to me
gracing the backs of many fine horses
through so many many long years
and
traveling from the high plains desert of wyoming
through utah and idaho into oregon
and then to me on the ranch along the consumnes river in california
too small for dylan’s golden dappled back
i had to use great grandfathers hand tooled
custom made saddle,
with his initials carved into the leather
i was never quite comfortable in that saddle,
it was designed for a man not a woman,
and yet even though it hurt a bit
still i loved to ride dylan
so filled with boundless energy
yet so easy to handle
he was dressage trained
like the famous dancing horses of austria
and
i never quite figured out the signal
that would send him leaping into the air
like a jumper over a high timber fence,
where there was no fence,
he was just dancing with exuberant joy,
because of a request i did not know i had made,
in a language only he knew
a language of infinite joy
an explosion of choreography
created by a trainer i never met
an experience so fantastic,
i cried for days, when he passed out of my life
grandma’s saddle was stolen
not long after dylan died
and i wonder even now
great spirit of the horse
is there a cosmic connection...

Reviews

[Josie E. Cook M. A.]

So sweet in memory~ Reminds me of my little sister's horse Buddy.
He is the same color, and she may have to put him down soon because he is refusing to eat much.
However, he is very old and weary now.
Buddy has been such a good horse for her, my nieces, and my daughter.
He will be missed just like your Dylan.
Thanks for sharing your memory of him.

[Perkele.7885]

i know very little about horses but, I am learning through your poems some basic knowledge about horses as well as some appreciative points of knowledge about them as well. I thank you for this jeannemarie!