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
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
GOPHER TAILS
When I was seven
gopher tails were three cents
The county had a bounty to arrest the little pest
not exactly a price on their heads
but you get the picture
So we hauled buckets of water
to drown them out
learned from the bigger boys
how to tie a noose in binder twine
placed it around the hole
and waited
Curiosity, which has been known to kill cats
is not very good for gophers either
Once caught
they were run in mad races
spun to centrifugal asphyxiation
or finished off in other cruel ways
before yielding us our hard earned bounty
In the spring we watched their return
to the snow speckled pasture
running tumbling wrestling
making love
And the wonderful babies
when they first ventured out
to try sunshine grass and shaky legs
It amazes me now
that as boys
We could take such joy
in their playful
beauty
And in their deaths
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
LADY
You could see her shine from miles away. She had
a movie star way of standing out from other horses.
Her rich chestnut coat always looked oiled and
polished with a deep inner glow that some people
have and you can’t describe. Sort of an abundance
of life that can’t be contained in the body and
radiates from every pore
And she wasn’t easy, coming from a line of
aristocrats. No one could ever ride her mother
or grandmother and her father bucked in rodeo
My brother tried to ride her first, the place where
she broke his arm still hurts when it rains. Not a
frequent problem in Saskatchewan
She bucked me off twice, both times for arrogance
Once in front of relatives from Oregon when I
dropped a rein and leaned over her neck to get it.
I was off balance and soon off of her onto the hard
ground in front of the shed. She did step on me
some too, just to drive home the point
The other time was in a soft field where I was
teaching her to neck rein and making circles to the
left and right. A car was coming down the lane and
I turned a little in the saddle to wave
It was enough, I was loose and I was gone. She piled
me so hard and high that I came down standing up
with reins still in my hands. Pretty good I
thought and started to take a bow for the people in
the car, but the lesson wasn’t over. She came
around full force with her back end like Babe Ruth
with a bat and knocked my flat
Every morning she would buck for the first half
mile, sort of an ongoing initiation; earning the
right to be with her again and again. She would
never be taken for granted and I knew that I would have to
face that test every day, and I was scared but I always
wanted to be there
And I stayed with her every time
I guess I had my fear to keep me tight
and my butterflies to keep me light
As I partook in some small way in Alexander’s feast
and took my classics lesson there
Only the brave
Only the brave
Only the brave deserves the fair