Getting Back to Writing

In my struggle to overcome writers block, I've read that an author should write something - anything, every day. So I have been trying to keep up at least that in the midst of the busy life we lead. The other night after a particularly long, cold day of working cattle, I went to bed unusually early. And when I woke up in the morning, the beginnings of this poem was in my head. I've never done poetry of any kind before, at least, not since grade school. So this was an entirely new experience for me. The result is as follows...

My pal and I set out this morn’

To tail a wayward steer

Little did I know we’d wind up here

So Broken and forlorn

I lay no fault with my mount

He set us straight and true

My loop was thrown, the steer near caught

When trouble appeared from the blue

A sheet of ice was neatly hid

Beneath snow so fresh and white

He slipped and fell and damned us both

There’s no winning in this fight

A broken leg for each of us

is the damage in the least

But the greatest wound is to my heart;

To kill this noble beast

I know to end his suffering

Is the gallant thing to do

But to shoot this loyal friend of mine,

It breaks my heart in two.

There is no horse who could survive

The damage he’s been done

But I will not deny the truth;

There’s a trembling to this gun

I lay my hand upon his mane

Where I’ve been known to sleep

But as he draws his final breaths

My eyes begin to weep

The sinking weight upon my leg

Of my companion ever true

Now grows cold, as night descends

There’s naught left for me to do

I’ve lain here in the ice and snow

for hours now on end.

My body crushed and mangled,

‘neath my most trusted friend.

The stars grow bright, as I wait

With a prayer on freezing lips

A near wolf howls and from the dark

A shadow deftly slips

I know not if help will come,

or if I’ll die alone.

But one way or the other,

I know I’m going home.

It is a wonder I do think

The places a mind will go

When you see the end a comin’

That chariot swingin’ low

I think of the home I left behind

In the well and settled land

I exchanged it for a western venture

Tailing cattle, dodging’ injun bands.

I can hear the voice of my beloved

A begging me at stay

Oh what I’d give to hear it now

I’d ask her please to pray

I wonder now just where she’ll be

Likely home and safely abed

As here I lie on the frozen ground,

only snow beneath my head

I think of the summer months from now

When scarce bones here will lie

To mark the place where once we rode

Beneath this cold Montana sky