Misty
On wings of angels she flies,
Across the moon,
Across the skies.
Mist of the clouds,
Mist of the seas,
Soaring gently on the breeze.
A shooting star,
A flitting bird,
She travels afar,
From places unheard.
Hoofbeats on air
Make nary a sound,
Light as a feather,
Soft on each bound.
Her cantering slows,
Her ears prick toward,
Her interest grows,
In the whistle from her Lord.
He calls her to him,
She knows she must ask,
“What is it, Sir?”
From behind a patient mask.
He smiles happily,
He knows she’s impatient,
But He just says quietly,
“The time has come for what you must do.”
She stares, confused,
At what He is saying,
She must become that dream horse
For which someone’s been praying.
He says,
“Do not fear,
You will come to no harm,
For I’ll always be near.”
She nods her majestic head once,
He points to a rope,
One that leads away,
Toward one child’s hope.
The rope leads to a tunnel,
Large, dark, and dank,
But there’s a light at one end,
Like the gun on a tank.
She takes one step,
And begins her journey,
One hoof at a time,
But she must hurry.
At the end of the tunnel,
She finds she’s on the ground,
And that it’s hard to get up,
Much less move around.
She looks up and sees,
A great black giant,
One who says with her eyes,
“Hello my daughter.”
“Daughter?!” she starts,
Then looks around,
It’s no wonder
She couldn’t get off of the ground!
She again is a filly,
So that’s what He meant!
The little girl’s prayers
Hadn’t even happened yet!
A long while later,
She’s back in a field,
Not her starry night sky,
But a big grassy field.
The other foals picked on her,
Because she was so small,
But she knew that in her girl’s eyes,
She would be 17 hands tall.
Then one day comes,
When she was torturously ripped,
From this new life she had known,
To one with a whip.
The men’s hands were hard,
Violently evil and harsh,
She was stuffed in a yard,
Full of panic and rush.
She was sold to a man,
One who only saw her as meat
To work at his farm,
All day in the heat.
It didn’t get much better,
Not even at night,
Not even the weather
Could make him bring her inside.
Then one day she was sold,
Only six at the time,
To a man who would train her,
Straight up into her prime.
He trained her for herding,
It was in her breed he knew,
This Quarter Horse could
Have kept up with Hurricane Andrew.
But she hated this life,
She hated the spurs,
Oh, when would the Lord
Bring that girl of hers?
At ten she was sold off,
She cried and cried,
For this time she’d had to leave
Her two year old colt behind.
She was shipped from auction to auction,
Across twelve different states,
But no one wanted this crazy horse,
Nearly demonic with fear and suffered an evil fate.
For fear it was,
With just a touch of hate,
For it was He who had left her
In such a sorry state.
He had broken his promise,
He had completely gone,
Had taken away everything,
She was truly alone.
She was finally bought,
By a farm in need,
Of a horse to lead trails,
Quite boring indeed.
Now, this barn also gave lessons,
For adults and kids alike,
But she was too wild,
She put up too much of a fight.
One of the instructors
Took her under her wing,
Grateful for a horse
That could jump like a spring.
But though the woman said that she loved her,
One of her students could see
She didn’t seem to care
What happened to the poor thing.
So the girl asked to lease for awhile,
When nothing came up,
Her instructor thought,
‘She may be worthwhile.’
So Callie, the girl,
Got on the small iron-sided being,
Got the mare under control and said,
“What a good girl you’re being.”
Her ears pricked in shock,
It had been
Quite a long time
Since she had been thoroughly praised.
When the instructor bought a new horse,
She needed to trade the new for the old,
So the poor mare was again,
Put up and sold.
But this time was different,
Quite hugely so,
For the buyer was the girl
Who had treated her like precious gold.
Though the mare was quite old,
They still went on rides,
Jumping in and out of sheep folds
And having the time of their lives.
Then one day the girl
Leaned forward and whispered in her ear,
“Do you want to know what I’d been praying
Before I bought you last year?”
She shifted restlessly,
Unsure of what she’d hear,
But the girl continued on,
Her mare had nothing to fear.
“I begged the Lord,
Again and again,
For a white Quarter Horse,
With a long, thick mane.”
The mare gave a nicker,
Quite rightly so,
Both their prayers were answered
From so long ago.
The only thing
That could make this better,
Would be for her to see her son,
Becoming greater and greater.
This too, came true,
At a show in November,
She was knocked out of first place
By a stallion named, ‘Remember’.
She knew from his smell,
And his shining golden coat,
This was her son,
Not some smelly old goat.
As they came forward for their ribbons,
He knew too,
His mother was here,
Not in a vat of glue.
Their owners met later,
And discussed the strange events,
Of why their horses had neighed
So loudly it bothered the judges, safe in their tents.
They compared bloodlines,
In shocking surprise,
They found out why
Their horses found each other.
Callie borrowed Remember,
Only for two weeks,
Mother and son,
For two glorious weeks.
Then, quite suddenly,
The mare and her girl had to move,
Across the sea to Australia,
A land unknown.
The girl was lonely,
The mare her only friend,
Until she met another girl on a trail
And her heart began to mend.
Six short months later,
They were on the move again,
This time to Ireland,
And the mare got a new friend.
His name was Luke,
A right jolly young chap,
The tall Irish gelding,
Had many jumping feathers in his cap.
Three years flew by,
Quick as can be,
And Luke was sold,
The mare silently worried.
For she’d hated before,
This moving through water,
And was quite scared that once more
This may be her fate.
But oh no!
Not this time!
This time they would fly
In her old friend the sky!
Back on the ground,
Again in her field,
The mare was content
To see what this new place would yield.
They were back in Virginia,
Now boarded with her son,
But this happy scene
Would soon be gone.
For the barn was too far
For Callie to come everyday,
So she was leased out,
To a girl I won’t name.
This girl was quite awful,
Never said she was good,
Always rode her, never stopped and groomed,
Never did she give the mare all that she could.
Soon it was show season,
She did very well,
Until one day when
A harsh fate fell.
The girl was stupid,
Couldn’t she see,
That putting a mare in season
In a trailer with geldings was a disaster waiting to be?
She kicked out the trailer,
Mad as could be,
But she cut up her hocks and the evil girl cried,
“Oh, no! Not me!”
For the trailer wasn’t hers,
And she would make her pay,
The girl whipped the mare
To within an inch of her life that day.
When Callie found out,
It was all she could do,
To stop herself from taking the crop
And beating the girl too.
The mare was upset,
She’d sliced a tendon,
No more would she jump
Up towards heaven.
Her legs got infected,
She couldn’t even walk,
But the mare knew
God wouldn’t let her balk.
She healed up it’s true,
But for one small thing,
Her hocks would always
Be double in size.
She lived out in the field,
Until one day,
She lay down and couldn’t get up,
No how, no way.
They took her to the barn,
And there she stayed,
Eventually her owner came
And did the same.
And so the mare passed,
Head in Callie’s arms,
Her last senses were massed
With her tears.
She was in the tunnel,
Once more,
Dragging her poor hooves,
Across the stone floor.
But then she looked up,
There He was again!
And she found the strength to
To walk to his hand.
As she touched Him she felt,
With overwhelming joy,
Her wings sprout
And her soul nearly melt.
For then she remembered,
The poor girl on Earth,
Sobbing with sorrow,
Heart filled with hurt.
She looked at Him and asked,
Silently with her eyes,
If she could go back,
Just to say good-bye.
He smiled and nodded,
But set one law,
She must come back,
No matter what she saw.
So the mare flew down,
Once more on the breeze,
To answer the girl who kept crying
“Please.”
As she rushed through the grass,
Invisible as can be,
And slid to a stop
Next to Callie.
The girl looked up,
Then her eyes filled with tears,
Her best friend was gone,
Now for some years.
The mare was shocked
At the change taken place,
Was this really her girl?
So tall with such a sad face?
The mare looked down at what
The girl was looking at,
A large can of ashes,
And a small grey stone.
She’d come here to truly set free,
The wild horse,
She’d once known
With familiar need.
As the ashes fluttered
Through her mane,
The mare caught sight
Of the words engraved.
It said,
“My beautiful girl,
You are finally free.”
With a small etching of the mare’s head.
As the girl placed the stone
Under the tree,
She sat down and cried,
And down on her knees.
She prayed to the Lord most high,
“Please, God,
Let me see her,
Just one final time.”
The mare felt the wind move,
It gently stirred the leaves,
And she felt her skin ripple,
As if she’d been swirled in the breeze.
She nickered and stomped,
For she knew the girl could see,
And from the gasp that she heard,
Well, it really could be.
The girl was startled,
That nicker she knew!
Her best friend
Would always be near.
She’d kept just a small part of those ashes,
She couldn’t let them all go,
And God had heard her prayer,
That too she knew.
For as the mist that had given
The mare her name faded,
A small breeze blew,
She knew she hadn’t been cheated.
As she faded,
The mare knew,
It was time to go,
The girl had indeed heard.
She reared and spread her wings,
Then neighed for all to hear,
She’d said good-bye,
But she’d always be there.
Callie looked up,
This her tears this time for joy,
And with hearing that neigh whispered,
“Good-bye Misty, good-bye.”
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