In Central Park on Sunday in New York, I witnessed a parable, a children’s story involving the New York Carriage Horses. A family with three children were walking by and animal rights demonstrators seeking to ban the horses and carrying signs protesting the “cruelty” of working the horses approached three children and gave them leaflets with photographs of fallen or injured horses.
They told the children than the carriage horse drivers were cruel, and were abusing the horses. They said they should not go and pet the horses, they should not support the existence of the carriage horses in New York City. They never touch the horses, said the women with the pamphlets, they never go near them.
“STOP THE NYC SHAME,” their signs.
The children listened politely and took the pamphlets. They began to walk away, and stopped to stare at the horses. The carriage driver, who was an Irishman with a mischievous gleam in his eye, winked at them, and held up a carrot. He pointed it at his horse, whose name was Chester.
The children looked at their mother, and she nodded, and the three rushed over to the horse and all three began petting them and offering them carrots. Two other children and a Japanese tourist joined in.
As working animals do, the horse seemed to soak up the attention, stood calmly long after the carrot was gone, being poked, patted and scratched. The children’s faces were full of magic.
In our culture, the loudest and angriest voices are the ones heard the most, the ones that make it onto television, into the newspapers. Sunday afternoon, I looked for the children, and photographed their amazement and delight, their wonder at seeing the big and gentle horses, munching their buckets of oats, getting fussed over, photographed, wondered at.
Their eyes were wide, it was good, their mother said to me, to see them love something that was real, that was not on a screen, that was outside, that held them so mesmerized and touched their imaginations. They had nothing to do with the outside world, she said, the only animals they ever saw were dogs on a leash.
I asked these children if it was true that they had ever seen a horse before, and they nodded, they told me that none of them had. They had never touched one, felt one, mastered the feeling of feeding a big animal like that safely and with confidence. What was it like, I asked the girl. “Wow,” she said, “just wow. He is so beautiful and he loves me.”
I asked them if they would mind of the horses left the park forever and if there were big electric cars sitting in the very places where they were now touching the big animals. I saw the magic go out of their eyes, the smiles leave their suddenly confused faces, the sense of wonder disappear, just as the horses will if they are banished form the great city, never to be seen by people there again.
Is there any doubt in the rational mind of any human being that every child in the world would raise their voice and vote for the horses to remain in the city, if given the opportunity? Every single one. Does that matter in our world, where the mystery and magic is being banned also?
Is there any doubt in the mind of any animal lover anywhere that frightened, abused and overworked animals do not stand still for restless children poking them with carrots, sticking their fingers near their mouths, and patting them all over their bodies? Chester took his carrot gently and carefully, the children – anxious at first – shed their fear, as children will. What a gift, I thought, I wish I had been given it when I was young. How touching to see it.
As the politicians and real estate developers and protesters move in tandem in their own incestuous and self-justifying universe – out of reality and without apparent empathy or compassion – to destroy the lives of 300 people and nearly as many horses, I thought I ought to stop and think about the children.
The children don’t seem to count in the conflict over the carriage horses, their voices are not heard or considered. But they matter, they are the future, the last great hope of the earth.
And this is, after all, a story about lost voices.
Who speaks for the children whose eyes grow wide and filled with enchantment, who love the horses? It is not an argument, you can stand by any carriage in New York and see it for yourself.
Who speaks for the lovers who climb into the carriages so shyly, who ask the drivers to take a picture of them with their cell phones and point and shoots, and who kiss tenderly by the Cherry Hill Fountain?
Who speaks for the visitors from all over the world who so eagerly hand over their cash and credit cards to see the great park in so beautiful and timeless and precious a way?
Who speaks for for the proud and free men and women who drive horses for a living, work outdoors, live their lives in their own spirit? Who speaks for their husbands and wives and children, who worry every day about their food and home and future?
And then, who speaks for the horses, our ancient and sacred partners in the travails and joys of the world? The people who love them and work with them and bring them into our world, or the strangers to them, the people who would banish them from our lives forever and send them away from safety and into the uncertain world, never to be seen again?
Sunday, a proud and beautiful Sioux Indian Chief – Chief Arvol Looking Horse – the most sacred man in that great tribe, the leader of the Horse Nation, who had come to New York to pray for the horses, sat with me in Central Park. He told me the story of the horses, and he thanked me for speaking up for them, and for answering their prayers for me to write about them. The horses bring the rain, the wind and the thunder, he said, they are our connection to Mother Earth, he prays every day for them not to be disrespected or harassed and taken from their sacred work – working with human beings
If they leave the great city, he said, the earth will weep, the rivers dry, the wind will leave, the waters will drown us in our arrogance and greed. We have lost our way, he said, if we drive out the horses and sacrifice them to money and greed and anger.
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I asked the chief if it was possible that the horses were really speaking to me, calling me to write about them. Of course, he said, he hears their messages every day.
