the white horse

You are a child again in New Zealand, out on the farm, and the one place the fear cannot reach you is up on the horse. When the other kids close in to bully you, this is the only place you feel safe, so you climb up and ride, and the world goes quiet. You lay your hand flat against the horse's neck and feel its pulse come up through your palm, steady, alive, something to trust. Near the pond you sit still and look down at the white horse's head below you, at the soft light flickering across the water, and nothing is asking anything of you. If you could lean back through all of it to the smaller one holding on, you would tell them it is going to be alright. It lives now as sandalwood, amber and milky black tea.