C. M. Russell   "Partners"

HE'LL MAKE A COWBOY YET

"You can always tell an eastern dude,"
I used to hear them say.
"It's not the way he looks or talks.
 He thinks a different way.
But give the dude a couple years
of gripping leather reins;
and herding cattle all day long,
across the wind-swept plains;
of getting bucked off from the horse
and battered, bruised and skinned--
with mouth that's full of prairie grit,
whipped up by flogging wind.

Give the dude a couple years
of forty-plus below;
of struggling to feed cattle
through six-foot drifts of snow;
of praying for an early spring--
just to face some flood,
and gully washers bearing down
on cattle mired in mud.
"Give the dude a couple years
 of calloused hands and sweat.
 A couple years of all of this....
 he'll make a cowboy yet.

 He'll take the time to look around.
 He'll see a circling hawk.
 He'll take the time to listen
 and he'll hear the prairie talk.
The same old horse he used to cuss,
 he'll cherish as a friend.
 He'll stoke his fire contented
 when the day draws to an end."

 Bette Wolf Duncan  copyright ©1999