Wild Horses

Wild Horses

            Herds of wild horses once roamed the landscape, families traveling together, grazing in tall prairie grasses and seemingly barren deserts, moving at will, searching comfort and basic needs, protected by lead mare and stallion. Now, the descendants of those proud animals are rounded up, chased by helicopters overhead, jeeps and ATVs on the ground, locked in pens, and sent to their deaths by truck and train. Foals are wrenched from mares, sent to auctions and uncertain futures.
            Wild horses are disappearing, because men want their land, because men claim the horses are destructive, so, therefore, are not welcome. 
            Today, caravans of immigrants, families traveling together, move one step at time, across harsh lands, escaping dangers, searching for better grazing land. Babies are wrenched from their mothers, sent to camps, separated, wounded in ways that will leave their hearts changed forever. These are people. They flee persecution, and we meet them with razor wire and regulations they have no way of fulfilling on their own. They are seen as destructive, so, therefore, are not welcome. 
            What will become of our land, I wonder, without our wild horses. 

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