I NEVER SAW MY MOTHER ON HORSEBACK
I understand that
she used to ride to school
but she was little and it was a farm
and somehow that didn’t seem to count
When she was about 75 she told me
about going with dad to the far end of the ranch
on a beautiful day a long time ago
to help round up some strays
She said that she liked it a lot
and couldn’t remember why she didn’t do it more
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
PRAIRIE EAR
Outer ear gathering
sounds of birds and wind
and hooves on spring grasses
Playing them soft on the drum
as hammer and anvil and stirrup
pass on the faint creaking leather
of my old Texas boot in the stirrup
Ripples wave down inner membranes
and tiny thousands of hair cells
move like grass in the valley
From pressure to impulse
and from sound to
symbol of
sound
All floating in the liquid balance of an easy lope
GO GENTLY
When you break horses and break land
you end up with broken horses
and broken land
When you approach with the reverence
of a listening friend
It is amazing how far
they are willing
to carry you
FIRST ART PROJECT
It took a long time to pound
a whole keg of brand
new spikes
into the hard ranch yard
A silvery path
paved with shining heads
danced bright in the prairie sun
I stood back young and strong
and proud and knew
that it was beautiful and good
My father thought he had to teach
There was no room for art
in a hard yard
in a hard world
It was a long time before I tried again
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
KENNY and ME
(or Ranching at Eighteen)
Together we were young
and strong and very bold
And together we could drink
more beer than we could hold
We could drive home late and fast
singing every Johnny Horton song
And then fall asleep for minutes
and still answer the morning gong
We would work it out in the hot hot sun
(so easy then did the poisons yield)
As we sweated bales with pith forks
and passed gas
in a thousand acre field
THRESHING TIME
I remember at Christmas getting a great threshing machine
a block of wood with wooden spools nailed to the side
but I loved it as I loved the threshing
All through the long summer days I would walk
the fields with my dog
At night my mother rubbed strong liniment on four year old
legs: growing pains she said, although one always hurt
more and didn’t seem to grow any faster
And the grain grew too, and passed me, and was higher
than I was. And then the harvest and the wonder of it falling
to the binder and the magic of the machine as it tied the
sheaves and ke-chunked them into the carrier
Then the stooking – little teepees covering the prairie again
and the golden warmth of everything
And the threshing machine; they wouldn’t let me too close;
it might eat me like it ate those sheaves and like the men
in the crew could eat, and they could eat
even when it rained
While I sat for hours nose to wet window
watching the great gray dinosaur
deep in the timeless mists
And hot clear windless days when everything sang and
the big belt slapped and the machine came to life again
and wagons were on both sides
and the big horses were standing strong and ready
and switching flies with dignity
The sun caught the arch or the long plume of straw and
the chaff lifting and the old hands fed the machine in a
sort of easy sweat-oiled rhyme and the new hands stood
on the sheaves they tried to lift each time
And the old hands laughed, and the new hands laughed
and they were men together
NEW HAY
The scent of hay
thrown upward in the cutting
Too rich and heavy to remain aloft
falls back to lie among its fallen friends
Walk shuffling small feet through it
and it lifts again in clouds to nostrils
Breathed in sweet particles remain
I do believe … there’s some there yet
FARM DOG
My dad doesn’t allow pets in the house
they weren’t allowed in on the farm
where he grew up either
Once when he was eight
the dog came up the stairs
down the hall to the room on the right
where his young mother lay dying
Laid his head for a moment on her lap
and went out again