“And did I seek the kingdom? Will the Kingdom come? Spread his legs, bend low, and look between them

For the mystery of the hard and fast, To be unveiled, his inverted face contorting

Like an arse-kisser’s in some vision of the damned, Until he’d straighten, turn back, cock an eye

And stand with the brush at arm’s length, readying.

– Seamus Heany, Loughanure”

 

Imagine: From the lives of the carriage drivers in Central Park:

Imagine that every time you rode your horse or walked your dog or stroked your cat that everyone who looked at the picture would be thinking and asking: did you hurt that horse? Do you kick your dog? Do you starve your cat, and leave her to lie in filth? Do you abuse your animals? Every time you ever take a photo.

Imagine how you might try to answer their questions, torn between hurt and anger, eventually coming to know that there is no way to answer, it is not about the truth. That’s how it is with the biggest lies.

Imagine a world in which people looked at photos of animals and people and asked of the people as well as the animals: are you okay? Are you being treated well and fairly? Are you happy and secure?

Imagine that your daughter tells you at dinner that she will not be applying to college next year because she knows you might lose your job and livelihood and have no money because some of the most powerful people in the world’s greatest city mean to take your work from you.

Imagine that the bank will not re-finance your mortgage so you can pay off some debts because it is possible you will not have work next year.

Imagine that your wife cries herself to sleep every night because of the things she heard the young people in the park shout at you one beautiful Sunday afternoon, where she loved to go with your children but will not go any longer.

Imagine that the mayor and leaders of your city care more about a horse than about you and your family and refuse to even meet with you or speak to you.

Imagine that the people who run your city and wish to take your work from you believe you would drive an electric car instead your horse and carriage, and that to them, there is no difference.

Imagine that you wonder every day if you might soon lose the life you love, the life you chose, to join the rest of the unhappy world in their airless cubicles, trembling in fear every layoff day, because you chose to work outdoors with a horse and together, be your own bosses. Because some people believe that horses who work are sad, and that work for them is torture.

Imagine that you go to a shelter and seek to adopt a dog and are turned away because you drive a carriage pulled by a horse in New York City. Imagine that you are told that your work means you are not fit to own a dog.

Imagine that the way of life handed down to you by your father and grandfather and that you always meant to hand down to your son and daughter may not be handed down, this long tradition broken because it was suddenly decided by rich men and angry people in apartments that it is cruel for a horse to pull a light and empty carriage a quarter-of-a-mil on rubber wheels on a flat ground. Imagine that you are no longer sure you want them to have it, there is so much anger and trouble.

Imagine that you have broken no law, done no harm, committed no cruel acts, and that it does not matter. They mean to take your life away anyway.

Imagine that your ten-year-old son goes onto Facebook and comes and asks you about the angry demonstrators who come out each week and talk about the greedy murderers are who are killing and starving and torturing the poor horses in Central Park? Who do they mean, Dad, do they mean you?

Imagine that they mean to take your horses from your and send them off to the farms of the rich and the rescuers or to walk into the blades of the slaughterers where they will vanish from the earth and never be seen by people again, or work with them.

Imagine a world in which men and women are hounded out of their lives by millionaires and mayors because they drive carriages pulled by horses in a great  city.  Imagine all of the men and women in the history of the world who would have lost their jobs and livelihoods if this were a just thing to do.

Imagine a world in which all the horses are banished, to disappear from our world so that they can be saved.

Imagine that all you can really do is stand with the brush at arm’s length, readying.