I Am

I am 24 years old.

My dreams and desires revolve around rawhide, thick books and

Being able to shoe my horses again.

The bunkhouse smelling of cooking steak, garlic and warm bread.

If streams of words, such beautiful words, are not pouring through my mind, then my ponies feet stomping out a rhythm echoes in my brain.

Visions of art that hasn’t yet happened, acted out in slow time…

A rag soaked with olive oil, slowly passing in methodical circles over the carved fender of a Tips saddle, the freshly cleaned leather turning tobacco brown under the care of heat, sun and oil.

A little cowboy-girl, riding alongside her father and turning up her dirty face for an impromptu kiss.

The way a loop swings over the hips of that yellow, hopping, bucking calf and seemingly impossibly, catches two feet…slack held up and dallies not missed.

The way the tough, cranky, strong cowboys you work with look when they fall asleep after lunch…their faces almost childlike in the peacefulness.

That look on a mare’s face when she jerks her head around, ears pointed forward and checks on her baby’s whereabouts, a painting framed in the frost she’s blown out in the cold air.

A smiling, sun browned and experienced ranch wife and cowboy-girl, hurrying across the lawn with a hot Dutch oven full of food at the local Rope for Hope, her spurs clunking against her worn boots.

The way hands look when they’re roping…there is slack in the reins, and the finger tips caress the saddle horn as they dally up, like a lover’s caress on his woman’s throat.

The way your hand, tough, cracked and calloused, can instantly feel so soft and dainty when held in the bigger and tougher hands of the man you love.

The images from my world inspire the words, and the words inspire more images. The beautiful pictures in my head inspire dreams, the dreams install hope, hope inspires action and action spurs me on down my path in life.

xo xo Liz