A Case For the Wild Mustang

1.

They no longer call the mustangs wild. 

Centuries isn’t long enough for the land

to be called home; I thought then, how can

we call this country ours?

2.

Mustangs disrupt 

the delicate ecosystems where the cattle

graze and graze and graze. Where the

ranchers continue to battle for land like

they did two hundred years, forty-three presidents, eight

generations ago. 

3.

Mustangs are invasive, though

they roamed the plains three hundred

years before the cattle did. Welcomed

by original peoples, integrated into

culture, in communion or wild,

in peace.

4.

Mustangs are a symbol

of the western landscape, sometimes

galloping free, sometimes

beneath the seat of painted bodies. I think

the west no longer exists, the

visions my heart see

just memories of past

lives when wildness was celebrated.

5.

Mustangs used to speak to me

in my dreams they caught

my confused expression and

bent their necks, beckoning

to the openness,

run with us here

on these open plains beneath

the soaring eagle and endless sky;

among the buffalo and prairie dogs—

your brothers and sisters. The meaning

of existence is right here: out there,

inside of you. Let your heart run wild.

6.

They say language matters.

The word mustang comes from 

the Spanish “mustengo”. The meaning–

wild or masterless cattle. Now they call them:

feral. Words 

determine how we view anything. Wild

conjures romantic visions of freedom, beauty. 

Feral describes a scene of danger, unruliness.

7.

I was wild once, like the mustangs. When wild

no longer suited their purpose, I became

feral, a disruptor of delicate ecosystems.

As if the mustang and I had any say when

they divided the land and destroyed 

everything in their way.