The Men From Way Out West/Poem/Bette Wolf Duncan

The Men From Way Out West-A Different Breed!

While growing up in Montana, I used to hear folks say, "You can always tell an Eastern dude." This wasn’t entirely a Western concept. The Eastern intelligentsia had long recognized that there was a different quality about Western men. What was it about them that made them unique? And what made them that way? In analyzing these questions, another concept comes to mind. Feed lots and cattle men in the Midwest had long prized Montana cattle. (I don’t know if they still do, but they certainly used to.*) Cattle from Montana and adjacent areas would survive where other cattle would languish or die.

Following is my answer. It is dedicated to all the hard working cowboys and ranchers that I knew. (My late husband is at the top of this list.)
 

The Men From Way Out West—A Different Breed!

It wasn’t their genetics
or some fabled cowboy deed:
their rock-hard, ranch existence
spawned a different breed—
a different breed...a different creed...
a different way of life;
resourceful, with uncommon zeal
for overcoming strife.

Impossible, their tasks, but they
just somehow did ‘em anyway!

Much, much different men emerged,
distinct from all the rest;
more sage and cactus in their guts,
the men from way out west.
What made the western men unique
was more than how they dressed.
They’d be unique in business suits
while on some Wall Street quest.

And it was more than how they roped,
or how the men could ride.
Their rock-hard ranch existence
had branded them inside.
So deep inside their flesh was seared,
it set the men apart:
more inner-strength and stamina;
more steely grit and heart.

They should have long ago been dead.
They lived, and tamed the West instead.

Just like Montana cattle,
livestock that survived
when other cattle languished,
or dropped somewhere and died.
It wasn’t their genetics
or some fabled cowboy deed:
their rock-hard ranch existence
spawned a different breed—
The Men From Way Out West!
 © 2001 (revised 2009), Bette Wolf Duncan, All rights reserved
 This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.

*I have lived in Iowa for the past 20 plus years. For 8 years of that time, I was employed as the Director Of The Regulatory Division, Iowa Dept. of Agriculture. During this period my husband was a silent partner with a son-in-law, in a cattle operation located in southern Iowa near the Missouri border.