Land Within Reason
Out here in the country, we don’t have a trash pickup service, so we have to take ours either to the county landfill or to one of the smaller drop-off stations situated in various places around the county. The one we mainly use is a few miles from our house, on a two-lane highway that offers beautiful scenery year-round.
Just before the turnoff for the drop-off station sits a small farm. Out in front of the house is a pasture with an old but still serviceable barn. In the pasture is a hay ring, and most times I pass the place, there is an old horse and a goat at the ring, eating. If the ring is full of new hay, the goat will most often be perched on top of the hay, nibbling away while the horse eats from below.
The pair are always together, even if they’re not eating. I have seen the goat racing around the horse’s legs in playful fashion, and I have seen the horse nudge the tawny goat out of the way with his great muzzle. If one of the animals starts to walk to another portion of the pasture, the other will always follow. They seem to spend all of their time within reach of each other, and I would not be surprised if they didn’t sleep together in the barn.
When I take trash to the drop-off station, I am almost always either heading to work or coming home from work. This means that I am often either preoccupied with what lies in wait for me on that day, or that I am thinking about the things that have just transpired over the course of the previous nine hours. The workplace pollutes my mind and my soul, and I make a concentrated effort not to think or talk about work any more than is absolutely necessary when I am not actually there.
But the sense of being fouled by the workplace is lifted for me whenever I approach the drop-off station and see the two friends, equine and caprine, as they horseplay and caper together, as they eat and drink, as they mosey and ramble and trot and watch. Their land is bounded on all sides by a cattle fence, somewhat rusty but solid. They can gaze at the mountains or the highway no matter which way they turn, and if the traffic on the road gets to be too much for them, they can return to the barn or at least put it between themselves and the asphalt ribbon and its noisy vehicles.
The sight of these two friends lifts my heart every time. I tend to believe they can communicate telepathically — or even vocally (after all, who is to say that the goat cannot speak Whinny Nicker Neigh, and who is to say that the horse cannot interpret Baah Bah Murrr?). And I like to imagine the sort of conversations they have. In my mind, I see them being ultra-formal with each other, like the old Chip & Dale cartoons.
“After you, my fine goat.”
“No, I insist you have the first taste of the alfalfa, dear horse.”
Even if I am wrong in my musings, I know that I am right when I conclude that there is a deep and special friendship between these two creatures in this sad and fading world. They clearly provide something for each other, and they would certainly be saddened, each of them, if something were to happen to the other.
What a delight, what a life, what a peace they enjoy. They are mostly safe from regular predation, they have plenty of food and drink, they have a warm, dry place to bed down, and they probably get the occasional treat like a carrot, or a scratch between the ears. Their entire world is set in a little patch of peace, a place of reason, a site of slow pace and rolling seasons and beauty for their watching eyes. When I am going to or from work, I envy them.
And I am aware that I live in a world that would scorn me to the heavens if any of its denizens heard me express my gentle envy for the parcel of peaceful land upon which the goat and the horse carve out their daily lives. No matter.
I will likely never meet the goat nor the horse, nor their master. Still, I consider them my friends. If they can communicate with each other with their minds, perhaps they can catch the amity and good wishes of a man who drives by them and delights in their quiet antics. If they can, I hope they understand in full how beautiful they are to me in this ugly age.
~ S.K. Orr