LITTLE BROWN JUG
My father had three sons
and taught them all
how to tie a grain sack, how to cut a calf
how to talk to a horse you walked up behind
so you wouldn’t get kicked or killed
Good things to know
but none of us are working cattle now
He played a mean harmonica
would that he would have taught us that
THE FARM, THE RANCH
AND THE NEED FOR GOD
Who pray to when the rains don’t come
who forget to thank when they do
Who curse when the John Deere breaks
and the cow jumps over the moon
(by the moon of course I mean
the fence to the alfalfa field)
Who in the long nights pondering
under stars too cold to be suns
a word big enough for big
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
COWBOY POETRY
This is not the poetry of pulling calves
in a cold wind and a foot or so of spring snow
with only a vest and a bottle of rye
to keep you dry
This
is the poetry
of that calf that would have died
standing on shaky legs
to drink warm milk
from the cow that would have died
HENRY MOORE
Henry Moore was a smart old cowboy
a smart old cowboy was he
Just as sly as a fox
be bought twenty-foot salt blocks
and set them out in West Texas in winter
Where a thousand strong tongues
changed those basic hard foods
into a bunch of reclining nudes
There are times when it bothers my conscience
to see
them hangin’ around London,
New York, and D.C.
Then I remember old Hank is one of the boys
just suckerin’ some dudes with these toys
So I decide not to chip off the bronze
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
WINTER IN THE BARN
Steam rises off the backs of big horses
The old Holstein in the second stall
shifts her weight from side to side
matching the rhythm of the milking
and flicks her tail at memories
of summer flies
Across the width of the barn
I stand with mouth open
in my biggest five year old oval
catching most of the milk
squirted dead eye straight
by the laughing hired man
In the tack room
kittens wait by a tin plate
to put their morning moustache on
In my memory it is always warm in the barn