The Call to Memory

There is little that can pull Toler's attention away from a patch of clover flowers and long, rich grasses. When it is time to go in, it is all I can do to tug up his head and hold him up by the bottom of his halter, moving fast enough he has to trot away from his grazing. Either that or I have to bribe him. But there is something that calls his attention away no matter what his activity--grazing, frolicking, socializing with his ladies, even pretending to be afraid of something while on a trail ride (it's a good excuse to be silly, after all)--the distant sounds of geese, their honking hanging on the air, like a whisper. He'll stop, pick his head up. Eyes wide and ears pricked, he'll tilt his head to the side and stare, sometimes with mouthfuls of grass falling from his open jaw.

To say the look is adorable is a gross understatement. It melts me every time. And then I watch him, his silent gaze at the sky, searching for the birds whose honks pull him away into his past. I always wonder what exactly he remembers--hearing geese while at pasture with his mother, standing beside her all legs and jaunty angles. Perhaps it's of his first pasture mates. Or maybe, during his first week away from Little Mary (his mother), it was the sound of those geese that made him stop fretting and really see the world. Sometimes I wonder if he really misses his old home in Canada, if he's happy here with me. Then every once in a while I'll call to him at the gate, and he'll pick up his head, eyes wide and ears pricked, and he'll tilt his head to the side to stare.