In Lament of the Cowboy

A scant twenty years, grieved a century or more Poetically perfect, in spirit and lore A man and his horse, out riding the range The cattle his instruments, and music to play Civil War veterans and blacks from the South Through dust and dark clouds, —snowy blizzards that mount Together they battled, in concert they fought Each unto himself, life’s harmony caught The hardship and death, to him worth the price Pushing always ahead, his past now contrite The only thing telling, to be left at the end Was the legend he gave us, —and the message it sends (Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)