Midnight in Portugal
July 2022 Full Moon
Its 1 a.m. I just woke up and heard some gentle rythmic thumping outside. So i got up and put on a sweater and my barn boots. I got a little flash light and three carrots and slipped out the back door.
All the stars were hanging out in a black velvet sky. Somewhere out in the next field a little screech owl called once, a short sharp E-eek!
Following the walkway around the South side of the house, I shined the light out into the West yard and, sure enough, i could see the fuzzy form of a white Lusitano quietly grazing. It immediately walked towards me until I could identify Kira's thick bangs that fall over her eyes. Kira is 25 years old. She was pleased with a carrot I gave her as I walked past her to see if the other two were around. Romeo, a still bigger white shadow, walked over to me from the other end of the yard. He's
a Lusitano too, but he only has a little tuft of hair for a forelock which gives him the air of a kindly, nearly bald uncle. One of his ancestors had to be a giraffe: he's so tall and always carries his head so high I can not reach to scratch his ears for him, but he bent down to get his carrot. He is 27 now. Boneca, who is 24, was not nearby so i played the light further down the field, searching for her dark brown body. She saw me before I saw her and ambled up to me and accepted her carrot peacefully.
So I stood there with my three fuzzy friends for a few moments listening to the night in the middle of the field on a hillside overlooking a valley, where the river runs through the hills to the old, cold gray Atlantic, in a country at the foot of Europe, which my ancestors had left in small ships over 300 years ago, never knowing if they would really find a new life on another continent, brave world travelers. In the night, when all the sounds of civilization die down, the scent of other places is carried on the little night breeze and I get the sense of my tiny being in a huge universe, and my short moment in time.