A black mantle extended from his shoulders like a cape as he galloped across the highway and further into the night. A cowboy hat of midnight black looked like an empty hole hovering around the top of his head, taking in all light with stiff curves of wool that somehow defied flight itself. He was there for a second and then he was gone, the only proof of his passing: a cloud of dust that was already settling and pretending it had never happened. He was a mystery that way, and one was never sure if he was even real. The sound was of a horse, if a horse’s hooves had been made of feathers and beating furiously against the air. A horse and bird combined then, with all the power and might and grace intrinsic to each. If you’ve ever seen slow-motion clips of a horse at full-gallop or the way a bird of prey takes to the sky, you know the power of which I write.
An old cowboy went ridin’ out one dark and windy day
Upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way
When all at once a mighty herd of red eyed steers he saw
A plowin’ through the ragged skies and up a cloudy draw
Their brands were still on fire and their hooves were made of steel
Their horns were black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel
A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky
He saw the riders coming hard… and he heard their mournful cry
On the last October night, straddling Halloween, its Eve, and a day of Saints, a ghost rider thunders by with the taut face of a ghostly skull barely visible in the darkness, and the gaunt look of someone behind the veil between two worlds. He rode in a fashion less like riding and more like flying – who can say what did or didn’t happen there? The veil is said to be at its thinnest today and tonight, so I have no way of knowing whether this was real or just an imagined scene in my overthinking head. Neither scenario presents much in the way of comfort or consolation – only unease and underlying tension on a day and night thick with both.
Yippie i ay Yippie i oh
Ghost riders in
Ghost riders in the sky
Was our rider coming or going? Was he traveling for purpose or was the purpose the traveling? Suspended in the air, even when galloping across the ground, is a state of flight one can preserve with the bending of time and perspective. One need not be some Marvel superhero or comic book man of make-believe to so defy the laws of physics and science and possibility – one need only refine and expand upon the imagination. We all have the potential and ability to fly like our ghost rider.
Their faces gaunt, their eyes were blurred, their shirts all soaked with sweat
They’re ridin’ hard to catch that herd but they ‘ain’t caught ’em yet
‘Cause they’ve got to ride forever in the range up in the sky
On horses snorting fire as they ride hard, hear them cry
He leans forward, angling and undulating in sickening rhythm – a strange dance atop the sinewy muscle of a sleek black horse that might as well be the night itself, writhing and wrangling motion out of thin air. They take to the sky, but maybe it just looks that way because most of us choose to never leave the ground. There is always a choice, even when there isn’t. Not choosing is a choice, and one of the most telling.
Yippie i ay Yippie i oh
Ghost riders in
Ghost riders in the sky
