Cowboy/girl poetry

I just recently returned from vacation.  While I was wandering around Eastern Washington, I happened on a cowboy poetry event.  I learned of it the night before and I am especially fond of cowboy poetry because it rhymes and has rhythm.  I get flummoxed by  poetry that doesn’t have either.

Well the upshot is, I wrote a poem the next morning and my husband coerced me into reading it at the event. It is my first venture into cowboy/girl poetry. Mine was simple, neither complex nor elaborate.  Some produce epic poems with long tales to tell, but here is mine, such as it is.  I think that much of the subtleties were lost on the audience.  I guess you need to be a farmer or rancher to understand some of them.

The Rancher’s Wife

 

Work from dawn to setting sun,

The rancher’s work is never done.

Milk the cow, geld the bull,

Ranching life is never dull

 

Pick the beans, gather eggs,

Clean the barn, repair the rigs.

Mow the field, bale the hay,

What to do rest of day?

 

To the bank to make a deal.

We need to buy another wheel.

Try to keep the wolves at bay.

And live to fight another day.

 

Little sleep at night from worry.

Get up early and start to hurry.

Line crews up and needs their grub,

Scrub laundry with lots of suds.

 

Now its time to mend the fence.

How can those beeves be so dense

As to lean and pull and ravage them?

We could just lock them in the pen.

 

Calves get skinny and horses founder.

What business plan could be much sounder?

Sheep need dippin’ and chicks are pippin’,

The ranch wife’s life ain’t coffee sippin.

 

Traded satin for Sorrel boots

Long and far from my roots.

College never taught me this

But hard work brings me bliss.

 

In the heat of sun or the chill of snow

We are out at sunrise, on the go.

Rain and sleet, sweat and chill,

To give up ranching, ‘never will.