Little brown pony, oh, come with me

Down where the green grass grows by the lea

Down to the little brook that sings as it goes

And widens its path when swelled with snows.

Come, little pony, with me on a race

Running through the wheat fields with quickening pace;

Over the little swell, down through the draw,

Whoa, little pony, now whicker and paw!

Hold tight to the reins; little pony don’t run;

There’s green of the wheat field, gold of the sun!

Brown of the plowed earth, blue of the sky!

Turn around, turn around, little pony let’s fly!

Back through the wide field, on past the knoll

Down through the brown draw, tall grasses roll,

Back through the waves of ever-greening wheat,

Little brown pony has wings on her feet!

-Lori, April 2009

Every now and then I can write a poem that I look back and savor the imagery, because I managed to actually catch at least a fraction of what I saw and heard and felt. This is one of those few. Anyone who has experienced a Kansas spring and has ridden a spunky little pony in greening wheat fields should be able to relate.

I was about 9 years old when we got our first pony, Penny, after months or years of begging. She was a large, fat, copper pony with a mind of her own. She would be poky and slow upon leaving the farm, but as soon as you turned her around to go home again, her head would go up and it was all you could do to hang on as you went flying down the road. The one spring we let our cows out on pasture, so most evenings during that time, I would go bring them up for milking, riding Penny bareback. Springtime in Kansas is beautiful, green, and fresh. That was the inspiration for this poem.

This poem was first published in Echoes of Eternity.