C. DUANE HENSLEY
Arizona
About C. Duane Hensley
One Old Yeller Dog
I saddled up one morning and headed out the gate
To check windmills and fences I hadn't checked of late
As I glanced back toward the house I spied one old yeller dog
Running from the hen house and heading for the bog
Knowing that the bog would be a place where he could hide
I pegged her out down the hill then kicked her into glide
I hooked old Buck while turning then put him down the fence
To chance your life for a yeller dog still don't make no sense
Old Buck was thinking cattle when we came down to the bog
But you should have seen his ears lay back when I put him on the dog
Now dog he saw that safety weren't nowhere up ahead
So back he went the way he came toward the chicken shed
By now old Buck and me was like one fine oiled machine
And if that dog had missed a step we'd had his plow to clean
But fate must stay up late and think of things to do to me
Just as things were getting good there was a near fatality
When we came around the house me and Buck was doing fine
But then I saw the cold slick wire where clothes hang out to dry
Old Buck he saw it just in time to duck his onery head
But me it caught across the girth and damn near laid me dead
If you ever used a slingshot while you were in your youth
You will know just what I'm talking bout this is the gospel truth
One minute I was headed east the next I was headed west
My eyes and tongue were sticking out and buttons popped off my vest
I saw stars in broad daylight and heard bells when there weren't no sleigh
It slung me hard against the house and my breath was gone to stay
The wife and kids came running out and toated me inside
And all the time that dog just watched—damn his yeller hide
The moral of this story is—now ponder this with care
If you have more eggs than you can use be good enough to share
© 2008, C. Duane Hensley
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.
C. Duane Hensley comments: Often folks from town would come by the ranch thinking it would be a good place to get rid of their dog they no longer wanted and drop him or her off. This poem is about one of those dogs that turned out to be an egg-stealing son-of-a-gun.
About C. Duane Hensley:
I was born in 1946 in Upland California. Two years later we moved to a ranch in south Texas and then to the White Mountains of north eastern Arizona. I grew up on a ranch there at the head of Silver Creek. I started working at age ten for my future wife's grandfather who was ranch foreman. I worked there until 1966 when my wife and I were married. We raised a family of one daughter and five sons and now have nine granddaughters and nine grandsons and one great granddaughter. We still live within eight miles of where we were raised and love this place. Being very bashful, poetry was about the only way I could express my feelings and thoughts.
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