The Horse and the Lady

To My Sister: Ciara, you’ve been a joy to grow up with. I can’t think of any other girl who would have put up with me for these past fourteen years. We’ve had our rough points, our ups and downs, but we’ve always pulled through and supported each other in the end. You’ve been my best friend, and my closest confidant. I’ve told you things I never told anyone else, and you also trusted me with secrets. And I just want you to know that I love you very much.

For as long as I can think back to, you’ve loved horses with a passion. They’ve been your whole life. You’ve been riding since you were little more than a toddler, and educating me about horses as well. Your room is covered in posters and pictures of horses, and your shelf stocked with books both fiction and factual on them. And now, we have horses of our own, and you’ve become one of the happiest girls I know.

With that in mind, I wrote this poem for you. I wrote it to capture the pure joy and love that you feel for horses, and your ability to understand them with a clarity that astounds me. I wrote it to express the beauty of your attachment to them, and the closeness that you feel to them. And I wrote it to bring out the beautiful young woman that I see you becoming more and more each and every day.

Sis, this poem is for you. Happy reading!

The Horse and the Lady

Clad in boots of finest leather

Running o’er the fields of heather

Be it rain or stormy weather

Still she comes to pastures here

Seeking solace in the meadow

From the night’s oppressive shadow

And the world’s perverse bravado

That hides an e’er-present fear

She whistles sweetly like a bird

The sweetest sound that could be heard

A sound that into action spurred

The friend she cherishes so dear

O’er the hills he comes a-prancing

With his mane and tail a-dancing

And his eyes her heart entrancing

As to her he comes so near

Swift upon him, up she goes

His coat now brushing ‘gainst her toes

Filled with passion no man knows

From a heart pure and sincere

And then both from there do fly

O’er the brush and o’er the wye

Off beneath the roof of sky

Colored with a blue so clear

And at dusk, the two return then

Thinking onto where they have been

Friends forever till the grim end

Noble horse and maiden fair