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
DEER GONE
A tough shot, 600 yards at least, running left to right
in the open sights of the 303. Aim to the top of the
third jump ahead, move the gun in a smooth arc
and squeeze slow
It was a kill
I saw it as great skill
a source of blood fed pride
and the deer… well it just died
The Indians used to see it as a kind of revolving door
the spirit of the animal would come back soon
enough in another body if you used the one
he had given up to you with gratitude
There are not many deer in these parts anymore
I wonder if they are trapped
waiting for the gratitude
Indians lost in whiskey
and we never knew
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
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
PRAIRIE CHICKEN
I came up through the valley where the homesteaders
had tried to make a go of it for a few years, past the tin
cans and other evidence of their short stay trying to rust
itself back into the ground. Up over the crest of the hill
where the Indians had lived for centuries with no more
evidence than the weathered rocks of tepee rings
It was spring and I stumbled upon what they may have
seen for years, the ageless mating ceremony of about
twenty five or thirty grouse. They didn’t see or hear me
and I stopped about ten yards away and watched,
although my mother might not have thought it proper
The hens ran around, heads down and tails up in
unbashful invitation; while the cocks puffed up the
air bags in their chests and drummed their challenge
And they looked handsome and brave in their posturing
and beckoning and their readiness for reckoning. And
the fights were on, straight on and straight up, with spurs
and feathers flying
It was vicious but pure. Not a cock fight for the
amusement of the bloody minded, but a way to see that
only the strongest would sire the little broods that would
have to survive the hawks and the snakes and the
weather, and all the dangers of a land where it takes a
great deal of courage – just to be a chicken