Here is another stab at cowboy poetry, written for my pal Lyle

 

Luke’s Gift 

 

The midnight sky was a raven’s eye

Flecked with platinum dust.

The moon chewed a bite of the Northern Lights

And threw sparks on the icy crust,

While a gelding licked at a green bale kicked

Into his lodgepole corral. 

Inside the trailer, Little Luke Taylor

Was wrestling with fading morale.

 

Here on the desert, in the sage and the red dirt,

Where the wind had a mind of its own,

Luke’s only companions were coyotes in canyons,

A bunch of bred heifers, and a snaffle-bit roan.

His radio was as mute as a funeral suit.

He’d forgotten the batteries in town.

And, good as they looked, the last biscuits he cooked

Had shattered a bicuspid crown.

 

So, here he was, stuck, with a two-wheel-drive truck,

One little blow past snowed-in,

While down in the bars they were smoking cigars

And tipping up jiggers of gin.

But Luke was having to tend to the calving,

‘Cause he’d given the rancher his word.

If Jim would try him, Luke’d stick by him

And help him to winter the herd.

 

The days bunched together like ducks in bad weather.

Time ran at a glacial pace. 

He tried to remember.  Was it the end of December?

How he missed sweet Jennifer’s face!

But before he hit bottom, and the loneliness caught him,

He reached for his trusty guitar,

Plucked at the strings and started to sing 

The Waltz of the Infinite Stars.

 

“Oh, come with me darling to the top of the hill

We won’t have to walk very far.

We’ll lie down together on Mama’s blue quilt

And we’ll study the waltz of the stars,

The stars,

We’ll study the waltz of the stars.

 

“Our galaxy spins through an infinite plane

Constantly shifting in space.

But space and time are one and the same 

So we cannot stay still in one place,

Or time,

Never stay still in one place.

 

“Here we are now, in the here and the now,

On this lonely planet of ours.

Put your arms around me, and I’ll show you how

To spin with the waltz of the stars,

The stars,

To spin with the waltz of the stars.

 

“Just lean back your head and gaze up above

At the wondrous sparkles out there.

Empty your heart of all but the love,

And let go of your troubles and cares,

Your cares,

Let go of your troubles and cares

 

“That’s wonderful Darling, now hold me real tight,

Hear the chords from the cosmic guitar. 

Let our hearts beat together till morning’s first light

As we whirl to the waltz of the stars,

The stars,

As we whirl to the waltz of the stars.”

 

Way across the mesa sat Maria Theresa,

In a blue Cadillac, broke down,

With a cell phone as dead as her nuptial bed,

Shedding tears on her holiday gown.

If only that jerk from the party at work

Had written his directions well,

She wouldn’t be stranded like a turtle who’d landed

Belly-up in this cold lonely hell.  

 

But what was that sound that the wind carried down?

Was it music drifting way over there?

She undid the latch from her Parisian catch,

And clipped back her dark henna hair,

Then covered it all with an Angora shawl 

And stepped out on the Owyhee plain.

With her ear to the breeze, chanting “Oh Lordy, Please,”

She found Luke like a moth finds the flame.  

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