Kentucky Mustang

October gallops in as stolid as a gray mare, a blunt wind snorts furiously through autumnal trees. Foliage rattles, but does not fall, it clings still to green stems. Appalachian backwoods have tough roots, shod as they are into an earth salted with a dark gritty ore. Bears are foraging and reaping, their black silky pelts clamber over gusting winds to reach the furthest fruits before first snows overburden stoic pines. Today the sky is unharnessed and racing at full tilt It whips my raw lips like a wet mane, it rears up to stamp down upon its own animated onslaught. I adjust my rucksack and reshoulder a shotgun grin, eyes watering caught under the stampeding gale, buffeted now by its muscular flanks. I need to bridle this striding wind, to halter its headlong charge, or better yet just surrender - turn my back on it, let it ride me as we leap down from the hilltops whooping it up like cowboys.