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Best Poems Written by Aj Alderman

Below are the all-time best Aj Alderman poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Aj Alderman Poem

To Be Known is To Be Loved

The wind knows the rider before the horse does. Long before sunup, boots scuff barnwood and the rawhide creaks with memory. A buckaroo doesn’t announce himself… he just is. A silhouette stitched into the mesa’s edge, hat pulled low not in mystery, but in reverence. Out here, to be known is not to be seen, but to be trusted. The land doesn't care for noise, only for the kind of silence that speaks from the chest.

He moves like water, slow when he can, fast when he must… always listening. The cattle don’t flinch when he rides through, and that’s a kind of love, ain’t it? Unspoken, wide-eyed, mutual. There’s a gentleness to the way he loops the rope, as if he’s telling the steer, “I see you, I need you, I won’t hurt you.” Love, in the hands of a working man, looks like sweat and callus and quiet intention.

And the horse… the horse knows everything. He knows what the rider’s holding back. When the world falls off the edge of the plain and a man’s only company is his own breath, the horse still walks beside him like a brother that doesn’t ask questions. To be known is to be loved, and the horse loves him for who he ain’t trying to be.

So when the fire dims and stars poke their cold fingers through the sky, and the coffee’s gone bitter, he sits still. Ain’t got much to say. Ain’t much he needs to. The land knows him. The wind knows him. The old dog at his feet knows the rhythm of his sigh. And that’s enough. That’s everything.
Because out here, to be known is to be loved… and to be loved is to still be riding come morning

Details | Aj Alderman Poem

Ridin' Through the Fog

The fog sits heavy on broken ground,
Snow lays light where the stubble’s browned.
No sun, just hush and hoofbeat slow,
And breath that drifts like chimney smoke.

The cows stand scattered, heads hung low,
Dark shapes caught in a pale gray glow.
I ride out quiet, don’t make a sound...
They know this hat, this horse, this ground.

A calf’s come early, slick and thin,
Laid out cold with his legs tucked in.
I swing a loop with a steady hand,
No sudden moves in this kind of land.

The stubble snaps beneath each step,
And time don’t care how long you’ve kept.
It’s just you, the rope, the breath, the need...
And a life hung tight between frost and feed.

My mare don’t flinch, just shifts her weight,
Knows well the line ‘tween luck and fate.
Ain’t no crowd, no song, no stage...
Just a man and stock and an honest wage.

I rub him down with gloveless skin,
He blinks, then breathes the cold back in.
His mama lows, I step away...
That kind of trust ain’t earned in a day.

I ride on slow through fields gone bare,
With wheat stems pokin’ through thin air.
And I reckon that’s what winter is...
A test of quiet, a trial by whiz.

This life don’t shine, don’t boast, don’t beg...
It’s a coffee pot, a frostbit leg.
But it’s mine, and I’ll ride it true...
Just like this ground remembers you.

Details | Aj Alderman Poem

Mendin Fences

I mend fence for a living,
but I ain’t fixed the one that matters.

The wire stretches out like a scar across this land,
and most days, my hands don’t feel like mine anymore...
callused, cracked,
barbed wire bit deep across the knuckles,
rosebush caught me reachin
where I shouldn’t’ve.

Still...
none of it hurts like the hollowness in my chest
where my little girl used to rest.

She’s seven months now.
Last I saw her,
she was a whisper wrapped in a blanket,
breathin against my ribs
like she already knew my heart was hers.

Now I ride fence lines hopin
the wind might carry me a thread of her laughter,
some proof she still smiles like me.

Her mama don’t talk much anymore.
The silence between us
is wider than this pasture.
I try not to hate her for it...
I reckon she’s guardin
the only soft thing she’s got left.

Still…
I’d give every busted knuckle,
every rough mile,
just to feel those tiny fingers
wrap around my thumb again.

You don’t know what soft is
til you’ve held your own blood
in your arms.

I thought I was tough.
I thought I’d felt pain.
But it ain’t a broke rib
or a rank bronc
that humbles a man...
it’s the sound of a baby
you can’t sing back to sleep.

I don’t sleep much these days.
Not cause of work.
I just keep hearin her in my dreams,
and I wake up reachin
for someone who ain’t there.

But I keep mendin.
Every busted post,
every saggin line...
some part of me hopes
that if I fix enough,
maybe God will hand me back
what I lost.

Or maybe she’ll grow up
and find her way through all this wire,
back to these hands...
rough as they are,
but still reachin,
still rememberin
what love feels like
pressed soft against your chest,
breathin steady...
like hope.