FOLK COLLECTION 11: The Skaggs Foundation Cowboy Poetry Collection

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

133

Joel Nelson

Shady Valleys

The horseman was a soldier word had it none was bolder hence; the orders in the folder sent him with the Light Brigade

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

134

Joel Nelson

Song of the Packer

Down from the peaks and pinnacles, and up from the canyon floor, through passes and fountains of immature mountains where big-hearted rivers roar

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

134

Joel Nelson

Song of the Packer

Down from the peaks and pinnacles, and up fromthe canyon floor, through passes and fountains of immature mountains where big-hearted rivers roar

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

136

Thelma Poirier

Family Fences

a family fixes fences moves from post to post mending

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

137

Thelma Poirier

Breaking Poets

how do we keep the poets out of the corrals always is a poem snubbed to a post jerking back, snapping rope about the time we're ready to throw the saddle on and buck 'em out the gate

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

138

Thelma Poirier

Hellfire

that's where LA cattle were branded when I was a hcild

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

139

Buck Ramsey

Anthem

And in the morning I was riding out through the breaks of that long plain,

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

142

Buck Ramsey

Bum Thinking Nowhere Near a Horse

If you see me sittin' sorrowful, all busted and stove-up and you wonder how a puncher gits that way,

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

144

Buck Ramsey

Notes for a Novel

I cannont sleep. All time is passing. The old days fade like dusking light.

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

152

Buck Ramsey

Child of the Plains

I write from trees and mountain rocks, there aren't too many on your plain

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

153

Buck Ramsey

Songdog

When young I saw a coyote spring in air and arc and tumble in a backward flip

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

155

Buck Ramsey

A Ponder

And was I real or was I dreaming? Was I that boy, so good of face?

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

157

Buck Ramsey

Season Song

If I'd go back then back I'd go on caroled air on season snow.

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

158

Liam Rector

My Pony

Coming back to you, my pony, whom I had to leave to make money, I proffer up the dire smidgen, the torn thing I managed to lug back with me

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

160

Andy Wilkinson

Says Harry (for Harry Jackson and Don Champlin)

Don, huge of heart and girth, and I dropped by to Harry's place in Cody on a rain-warm day in spring, Hart Mountain's postcard face alight, late afternoon.

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

162

Andy Wilkinson

Benediction After a Gathering of Cowboy Poet

It's night in Nara Visa, perfect black, September waxing moon, an equal white, no shades of gray

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

163

Andy Wilkinson

The Stump-Grubbers

No tree can live forever. When one dies, it dies in leaf and bud and bit by bit and limb by limb, until it dries in heart and root, and naught remains of it

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

164

Andy Wilkinson

The Red Tail Hawk

I know what lifts the red-tail hawk, what pumps the thunderstorm, what snaps the thistle at its stalk, and how the hoo-doos form

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

165

Andy Wilkinson

When the Devil Plays His Fiddle

The tank's gone dry, the grass is brittle, the sand in the wind

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

166

Andy Wilkinson

Ashes, After Fire

I've seen the bluestem, stirrup-deep, become a blackened pyre, a wasteland, buried in the heap of ashes, after fire

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

167

Andy Wilkinson

A Prairie Mother's Prayer

He's so small, such a tiny thing; he needs my all, he needs everything that is dear in a mother's care, so, God, please hear prairie mother's prayer

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

169

Paul Zarzyski

Buck

The December my horse died, I did not go to midnight mass to celebrate with a single sip of wine Christ's birth.

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

171

Paul Zarzyski

All This Way for the Short Ride (In memory of Joe Lear)

After grand entry cavalcade of flags, Star-Spangled Banner, stagecoach figure 8s in a jangle of singletrees

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

173

Paul Zarzyski

To Wallace (for Ruth, Clint, Allison and Natalie)

I'm not applauding cathouse towns in Idaho, nor rednecked gov'nors who reigned in Alabama. The Wallace I tip my beaver lip to is my hero, that Cowboy Poet Lariat--McRae--from the Rocker Six, up Rosebud Crick, Montana.

Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.

Robert McDowell

FC 11 M-54

175

Paul Zarzyski

The Meaning of Intimac (for Verlena Orr and Georgia)

Not reasoning, but romantic prehistoric instinct coaxes my whiskered cheek to the bristled muzzle of a colt working long-stemmed timothy-brome hay evenly inward.