DIRECTIONS TO LOS NOVIOS RANCH
for Claire and George
A hundred miles south of San Antone
Los Novios means The Sweethearts
They had Brahmas in the pasture
they had a gator in the pond
They got big Blue Indigo snakes
there to eat them pesky rattlers
Though mesquite may be as close
as you get to a sweetheart tree
The roadrunner on the woodpile
is all puffed up and singing
Hey girls, look at me
Branding time again
babies torn from their mothers
cowcalfany of sound
CLEANING THE CALF SHED
Forty below outside
not much warmer
on the inside
A hundred little Herefords
dropping and stepping
where it freezes
where it drops
The calves are
four feet closer
to the roof
by April
After the thaw
sitting on the steel seat
of the little orange Allis
with the front end loader
Driving in hard
and pulling
out
fast
Manuria
in one nostril
spring
in the other
GRASS FED
Shakespeare knows what we gotta do first
but let’s get rid of the feed lots next
Oats was made for breakfast
and corn was made for whiskey
cows was made for eatin grass
and calves for runnin frisky
Surely not for standin around
burstin their livers on a lot of hot feed
that they don’t need, and we don’t need
The beef might be
a little tougher to chew
but our hearts and our jaws
would soon be back to as good as new
And it might
come in real handy
not to be steroid de-sexed
when it comes to what we’ve gotta do next
ROUNDUP
It’s about the hardest dustiest best work a man can get
The pride of the heeling rope, thrown snake quick from a
good horse and the slow steady pull, dragging the white face
out where the boys with the hot irons
can record the feat
Three hundred cows sing of calves lost and found, and above
all through it all the full strong laugh of one of the boys,
where a slip was made or a kick well placed
At the end of the day, you wrap a rope sore hand around a
spring cold beer, and lean back against the old pole fence
deep in the pain, and the sweat, and the moment
Completely released from the wheel of desire
There’s no place you’d rather be
There’s no one you’d rather be with
and you’re too damn tired to move anyway
HEREFORDS
They’re not as storied as the Texas longhorn
nor as hairy as the Highland creed
And they’re not nearly so sophisticated
as the latest European breed
They sure don’t calf out as easy as Angus
but all around, they’re all you need
(AND THEY’RE PRETTY TOO)
I remember
few things as beautiful
as looking back from the point
and seeing a few hundred Herefords
pouring through a cleft in the hills
down to the home corrals
like a spring flood
red as earth and blood
Rolling with white faced foam