Horse Prayers

Horse Prayers, Poems from the Prairie, is a collection of poetry from a small farm on the Colorado prairie; tiny stories in simple words, praise for the beautiful fragile land, and love poems to horses. This is a 106-page book of poetry and full-color photography, a softcover mini-coffee table book. Some heartfelt, some humorous, these poems are a howl to the prairie wind. I'm a woman on a farm, wonderstruck by this simple life with its plain beauty; the comfort of daily chores and bittersweet sunsets. Even my words can't look away. And the horses. This gray mare isn't over that girlish phase. None of us are, so I write love poems to horses, putting words to this equine passion that powers a central part of our lives. What is it that pulls us so fiercely to horses? Horse Prayers is verse but this love affair with poems doesn't threaten my long-term relationship with writing non-fiction. It's more like an inky ménage à trois. Wish We felt them close before we had skin; from an infinite prairie the vibration began. A slow rolling nicker rumbled, more felt than heard. Horses called to us, before we were born, so we would remember their warm breath when we first saw fairy-tale images in children's books. We were theirs long before we called them our own.

Horse Prayers, Poems from the Prairie, is a collection of poetry from a small farm on the Colorado prairie; tiny stories in simple words, praise for the beautiful fragile land, and love poems to horses. This is a 106-page book of poetry and full-color photography, a softcover mini-coffee table book. Some heartfelt, some humorous, these poems are a howl to the prairie wind. I'm a woman on a farm, wonderstruck by this simple life with its plain beauty; the comfort of daily chores and bittersweet sunsets. Even my words can't look away. And the horses. This gray mare isn't over that girlish phase. None of us are, so I write love poems to horses, putting words to this equine passion that powers a central part of our lives. What is it that pulls us so fiercely to horses? Horse Prayers is verse but this love affair with poems doesn't threaten my long-term relationship with writing non-fiction. It's more like an inky ménage à trois. Wish We felt them close before we had skin; from an infinite prairie the vibration began. A slow rolling nicker rumbled, more felt than heard. Horses called to us, before we were born, so we would remember their warm breath when we first saw fairy-tale images in children's books. We were theirs long before we called them our own.

Anna Blake is a horse advocate, equine professional, international clinician, and award-winning author of Stable Relation, a Memoir of One Woman's Spirited Journey Home, by Way of the Barn, Relaxed & Forward: Relationship Advice from Your Horse, and Barn Dance, Nickers, brays, bleats, howls, and quacks: Tales from the herd. Blake also writes a popular, yet unconventional blog (www.annablakeblog.com) about life on the farm and horse training from a unique perspective that affirms her creative and inspirational approach to understanding, training, and loving animals. Blake resides at Infinity Farm on the flat, windy, treeless prairie of Colorado, home to a multi-species herd of horses, llamas, goats, and our moral compass, Edgar Rice Burro.