The Back Paddock |
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It doesn't belong to us, but it is safe for the children and their ponies, so we go down the right-of-way most days. Sometimes we go the long way round down towards the railway line, other days we go past the caravan and Gaylight stops and looks, hoping to see the people come out of their little house. She always stops and looks, since the owners were there once and caught us. They knew we'd been coming because of our hoofprints cross-hatching, over-imprinting, up and down all the tracks. Gaylight thinks she wants to see them come out of the little door again because it is deliciously frightening. She's only four and still amazed at things - dead sheep, cows, cars, motor bikes and the quails that rise up out of the long grass. We haven't tried her on a train yet. Luke plays up just because he is like that. The kids fall off him like autumn leaves, and cry. You should see him going across water, if you can get him to do that. He'd jump into my pocket and get me to carry him, if I wasn't carrying a stick and being stern. We go down past the pine trees, under the massing black cockatoos (there are usually some kids trailing behind us hoping for a ride) towards the tree stump Gaylight never likes the look of. "We're nearly there, hang on and remember, drop your hands." They put a brave face on, their backs straight, heels down. If one starts shying, the others will probably have a go, and then it's all on, ponies everywhere. But, as I say, "They're only naughty if you can't manage them!" So they sit up straight in front of the other kids, combating the ponies with all their will and power, moving easily in the saddle, felling the ponies' strength and will. I love to see them do it. Half on top of the world, sky high, tasting the great force of animal nature, half terrified and wanting to get off and go home. Will there ever be anything so good? To see them up against their love and fear, and working at it, hands and heels. And the ponies knowing how they feel, winking at each other as they plunge and rear. Or to see them up ahead down the track in the long shadowed afternoon sunlight, golden in the beautiful moment? The two sisters on their ponies, moving together like time on a wheel, two bobbing heads, two whisking tails, as they do a perfect collected canter and halt from the trot. There's a FOR SALE sign on the lamp post on the Tallong road now. The new owners might use the land, clear it and stock it. The tree stump will go, the |
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All work within this periodical is copyrighted by the authors and Big Pond Rumour, January 2008. No part is to be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the authors and Big Pond Rumour Press. |