MONTE R. McDONALD
About Monte R. McDonald
Cowboy Poetry
Seems there's an awful lot of people
Picking up a pen
And writing cowboy poetry
Just because it's in.
I'd read quite a lot of it
And It kind'a seemed to me
That mostly it weren't cowboys
Who wrote that poetry.
They don't tell about the work he does
Nor the way he lives and thinks.
They're mostly 'bout his trips to town
And the whiskey that he drinks.
So I figured that I'd write one
That would tell for a change
How a cowboy lives and thinks
And works out on the range.
I thought about a cattle drive,
Nope, that wouldn't be so hot.
It wouldn't be exciting
Unless I lied a lot.
How about a branding? Cows and calves a bawling,
The smell of burning hair.
Nope, just men and horses working
Not much excitement there.
Or a day spent classing cattle
When you think you're gonna freeze
'Cause it's edging down to zero
With a mighty bracing breeze.
The harder I tried to write a poem
The plainer I could see
I couldn't put on paper
What this life means to me.
A morning on the desert
About the first of June
When coyotes are still howling
A talking to the moon.
Where new spring calves are playing
And kicking up their heels,
Trotting out to make your gather
The way a good horse feels,
Some mustangs on the skyline
Leaving on the run
Their dust trail blue as willow smoke
In the early morning sun.
The first sight of a wagon camp
With teepees scattered round,
Wrangling in the darkness
When it's mostly done by sound.
A mountain meadow in the summer
Full of yearling steers,
A good horse sorting cattle
The way he works his ears,
Getting on a horse
You know you just can't ride.
Wishing your saddle horn was bigger
So you'd have more room to hide.
There's many things I'd write about
If only I knew how,
About good men and horses
The handling of a cow.
I've wrestled this all evening
And just can't make a start
At putting down on paper
What I'm feeling in my heart.
So maybe it was cowboys
Who wrote that poetry.
Next time I'll try a subject
That don't mean so much to me.
© 2007, Monte R. McDonald
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.
About Monte R. McDonald:
I like to write about things that you wouldn’t know unless you’d worked a-horseback “out where the beef steaks grow.” I try to paint a picture with words that shows what I’m seeing and feeling.
I was born in eastern Oregon a long time ago. My Dad’s side of the family worked for the Hudson Bay Company and beat Lewis and Clark here. My Mom’s Grandmother Bleakman was the first postmistress of Hardman, Oregon. One of my cousins has the original charter. When I was a kid, I worked on the ranches in that county and logged some. I kept going south and working on bigger ranches until I thought I was a good enough hand. Then I went to Winnemucca, Nevada, and got a job on the Quarter Circle A wagon and I soon knew that was the kind of ranch work that I’d been hunting for. Outside buckaroos were hired just to ride. It helped if you could. I worked for all the big outfits through the years. The ones I liked, several times.Like most riders I had some things broke or banged up pretty bad. Every once in awhile it got so it hurt just to ride a horse, let alone fall off one. The ground kept getting harder, the summers hotter, and the winters colder, until the time came where the pleasure wasn’t worth the pain. I’ve had my back operated on and they totaled me out. I’ve spent the last 20 years writing poems and short stories about “how it was back then.”
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