cowboypoetrypress

Herding Longhorns  (Authors Collection) – Merle Grabhorn

CAIRN

by Richard Manly Heiman

I blear down from beyond the canyon rim
out there
where shadows still refuse the light
that clearing where you justify the night

The funneled wind up the arroyo breathes
a murmur of your name
stirring the leaves
gaunt cottonwoods on fire with the dawn

And on the thermal, rising with the day
kee-eeeee-ar
a red-tail takes flight
screaming forth her elemental life

My palomino paws the chalky earth
tosses his head
he strains against the girth
impatient with my hesitation now

But I will linger still
and set it down
to memory
where I laid you in the ground

Richard Manly (Rick) Heiman lives in the Northern California “Gold Country” where there is currently little gold left and no water from which to pan it. He works as a substitute teacher and writes mornings, evenings, weekends and when the kids are at recess. He is in his fourth quarter of the Lindenwood U. MFA Writing program. Rick rides horses whenever he can find one slow and low enough to mount up!

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The Tenderfoot And Nasty

by Larry Bradfield

“Well, lookey here !” Bob said with glee
“We’ve got a tenderfoot !
He’s got all this brand new gear , you see
He don’t know where to put ”

“He says he comes from way Back East
Teach him a thing or two
Let’s put him on that unbroke beast
And see what he can do”

The hoss they gave him don’t look mean
Though Nasty was his name
He did seem sometimes really keen
On makin’ riders lame

It seemed so like an awful match
New guy on this terror
This plot somehow just didn’t hatch
We all judged in error

The greenhorn climbed upon that hoss
A move as slick as rain
He spurred to show him who was boss
And let him have the rein

Now Nasty gave him all he had
He bucked and whirled and screamed
The rider smiled, said “This ain’t bad !
It’s nothin’ like I dreamed.”

That hoss gave up, plum’ tuckered out
The rider just stepped down.
Bob said “The East you lied about!
You’ve rode before this town !”

The new guy said, “Not in the least.
This here’s New Mexico.
The whole of Texas lies Back East
I do believe it’s so !”

They called him tenderfoot no more
He made a real smart hand
He came from Texas that’s for shore
And that ole boy’s got sand

Larry Bradfield is a retired physicist / aerospace executive who was born and raised in the midst of sand, oil and cattle in the Permian Basin of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. After living and working on both coasts and the borders of Mexico and Canada, he has retired to  Texas and still feels his roots in the cattle country. He is the author of two books of cowboy poetry – One Foot in the Stirrup and Out Where the Blacktop Ends – and has publshed a number of poems in the on-line world.
His wife, Joyce, is a proud Pennsylvania native who has taken easily to the Texas soil.

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Chimney Rock Cemetary

Melbita, Nebraska

by Andrew Hubbard

This speck of land

On the Oregon Trail

Is a tiny cemetery.

In the high plains vastness

In the cold, cold wind

Below the tumbled gray sky

Untended for fifty years,

Maybe a hundred.

The picket fence is missing slats,

The hand-hewn, wooden markers

Are bleached, askew,

Some fallen over.

Each marker has a full name

And dates of birth and death.

Some have a few words of a Bible verse.

But it’s the dates that tear at me:

This one lived four years…

This one seven.

I try to imagine

Being seven, sick, fevered,

So far from home

And so afraid.

This is the high plains:

There was no wood for a box,

The parents would have wrapped her

In a blanket—if they could spare one.

Digging a hole in the tough sod

Was a day’s work for the man

And the brothers.  The sisters

And mother sat back in the wagon

And didn’t look.

Father came back stone-faced

Wiping his hands on his pants.

The horses needed tending,

And then it was westward,

Westward toward the great ocean.

It was a shame:

His wife died before the house was finished,

And on a farm

The work is never done.

Thirty years went by

Before he could sit back

And finally cry for his baby girl

Dead and buried

On the Oregon Trail.

In the high plains vastness

In the cold, cold wind

Below the tumbled gray sky.

Andrew Hubbard holds degrees in English and Creative Writing, from Dartmouth College and Columbia University respectively. He is the author of three business-related books, one book on gemology, and one book of poetry, “Things That Get You,” produced by Interactive Press. He lives in rural Indiana with his wife, intermittent children, two Siberian huskies and a demon cat. When not writing poetry, he is a passable outdoor and wildlife photographer, a licensed handgun instructor, a former competitive weightlifter and martial arts instructor, and a collector of edged weapons.

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