Tales of the O-NO Ranch
Wellington, Colo.
Gentle readers, as most of you know I have always been and still am a cowboy purist in body and soul. I often think about the “lifers” (as I once was), out almost every day doin’ their job from the back of a good hoss and the thought of changin’ careers almost never enters their minds.
I was always an admirer of the late Tom Blassingame, the 91-year-old cowboy they found out underneath the Texas panhandle skies where he had died and fallen from his horse. He was a cowboy’s cowboy!
I penned the poem below called “A Cowboy’s Lament.”
From sunup to sunset,
It’s mostly the same.
A ridin’ these hills
Fer wild cattle to tame.
To mother up babies,
Keep salt on the ground.
Keep shoes on my pony
and hope for Saturday in town.
I’m just a cowboy
All thru and thru.
The grass is always green
The sky always blue.
I keep a’hopin’
Fer a place all my own.
So I keep a ridin’
This ole strawberry roan.
The life of a cowboy
It don’t change all that much
And days in the saddle
Beg a good woman’s touch.
I ain’t complainin’
‘Cause it’s all that I know.
Seen grass stirrup-high,
Seen it buried in the snow.
Maybe some day
They’ll say “It’s a shame
They found ‘im stone cold
Like ole Tom Blassingame.”
What better way to
Say yer goodbyes
Than flat on yer back
A lookin’ up at the skies!
Stay tuned, check yer cinch on occasion, and I’ll c.ya.
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