In the Afterwash of Lifetime TV

Coming down from an emotional high into a holiday weekend. Finding myself on YouTube - "Escape from the Alamo" lives again.

Quiet Monday - back to reading and writing. And a gift of poetry from a friend. Western verses from a 19th century cowboy, a voice that I've got to share.

Charles F. Lummis lived the West and wrote of it in lyrics. I've read some modern cowboy poetry and saddle soap wisdom - Will Rogers to the present. Charles Lummis was the real thing. A Bronco Pegasus. Here's a tantalizing sample:

Nita, come roll me a cigarette,
Just as you used to, long ago
In the far, sweet days when first I met
My dark-eyed fate in New Mexico!

Do you remember those days, chiquite,
(Here’s a husk) and the stranger pale
Your father’s herders brought to your feet
Dripping with red, from the Dead Man’sTrail?

(Now just a pinch of the tamayá –
How it sweetens the poorest weed!
A coal for lighting – Good! Allí stá!
Ah, youth it is that is life indeed!)

And how you won him to life again,
Bending over with infinite eyes,
Crooning the songs of your sunny Spain,
Fanning his forehead with softest sighs?

Deeper a hurt in his heart there lay
Than where the Apache arrows pried.
‘Twas a fair-haired playmate, far away,
With blue eyes traitors, and lips that lied.

*
* *
I had a letter from her tonight:
“John, I was wrong! ‘Twas a girl’s mistake!
And time has humbled my heart to write –
Oh love, come back, for our old love’s sake!”

Go? Do you think I would go, mi flor?
With love like yours shall I hoard regret?
And our barefoot babes around the door?
No! Then a kiss and – a cigarette!

1889

Thank you, Bunny M. K., for this gift on a cloudy afternoon.

Dac Crossley
September 5, 2011

"Our lives tach us who we are." - Salman Rushdie

Comments

[Angela K Roe]

I like this, thanks for sharing!

[Dac Crossley]

Turn on your web browser and look for YouTube. Then type in "Escape from the Alamo.

[Eileen Obser]

Thanks for the nice poem, Dac! I get Writers Almanac online each day -- the same one that Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion hosts on the radio each day. There's always a poem and sometimes I just have to save them.

How do I see you on YouTube?

Eileen