He'll Make A Cowboy Yet/Poem/Bette Wolf DUncan

He'll Make a Cowboy Yet

   "You can always tell an eastern dude,"
   I used to hear them say.
   "It's not the way he looks or talks.
   He thinks a different way.
   But give the dude a couple years
   of gripping leather reins;
   and herding cattle all day long,
   across the wind-swept plains;
   of getting bucked off from the horse
   and battered, bruised and skinned--
   with mouth that's full of prairie grit,
   whipped up by flogging wind.

"Give the dude a couple years
of forty-plus below;
of struggling to feed cattle
through six-foot drifts of snow;
of praying for an early spring--
just to face some flood,
and gully washers bearing down
on cattle mired in mud.  "Give the dude a couple years
  of calloused hands and sweat.
  A couple years of all of this....
  he'll make a cowboy yet.
  He'll take the time to look around.
  He'll see a circling hawk.
  He'll take the time to listen
  and he'll hear the prairie talk.
  The same old horse
  he used to cuss,
  he'll cherish as a friend.
  He'll stoke his fire contented
  when the day draws to an end."

© 2001 Bette Wolf Duncan
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.