The Horse Ranch: The Threshold of Humanity

As we turned off of Highway 79 onto the gravel road leading to the ranch, it was as if we had stepped across a hidden portal to another world. The cacophonous, screeching noises of humanity’s constant rush began to subside, replaced by the plaintive cry of a black hawk, surfing the currents of air through the ripe, ocean blue sky. Time itself was lost in the golden orange leaves and the whoosh of the creek faintly murmuring a sweet melody. I looked behind me and saw the harsh, angular lines of the highway, mauling the pristine skin of nature, stretching into the horizon for eternity, a march towards death and time. Across the threshold of humanity, we walked in the lush, curvaceous arms of the pasture, watching a fairy tale white horse dance to the rhythms of the wind. As we waded through the grass, our feet made a “shh” sound, whipping the grass back and forth, as if our feet were instructing the landscape to remain silent, to let nature take over completely. As we neared the creek, hidden behind a luscious layer of green bush, poison ivy, and a myriad of crisp twigs, the sound of the water crescendoed into a vibrant, childish melody, the sound of rocks tumbling into the water a natural staccato. The grasses at the bank lay flat on their spiny backs from the force of the flowing water, a sea of dead green soldiers peacefully at rest under the ocean of sky.