Son of the Legend?
7/’96 read at Grandmother McCarty’s funeral 9/11/’96
As old hands struggle to remember,
Young ones try not to forget
While bustin’ brush to cut their trails,
They ponder horseback- jet to jet.
The values of a generation
Past live on past lives ahead.
Philosophies live longer than
The personalities now dead.
For “As a man thinks…”in his heart
The man will prove indeed to be;
His children will reflect his ways.
His wisdom walking all will see.
If flow’rs of grass bloom in his heart,
His offspring soon will bear the seeds
That love the land, the horse, the cow
On through the howl of corporate greed.
Taught that a man can stand up straight,
Talk plain and look you in the eye,
To seal a deal with a bare handshake;
His word’s still good when times are dry.
To judge a horse, look at his feet,
The value of a cow- her teeth,
Best land is shown wrap’d in a drought,
A man’s word shows the man beneath.
From timberline to desert floor,
From Quakie cold to Cholla heat,
The buckaroo to cowboy band
All seem to march with same heartbeat
In leather proven, hidden mettle
Buried ‘neath a wooden cross,
They tamed a land, became a legend.
Children mourn’d, then fill’d the loss.
Yet, what was needed to obtain
Will be required to preserve.
The land cares for the character
That cares for land as it deserves.
So, in the nightwind’s harshest seasons
Hear the land’s soft, whisper’d question:
Is there a son of the legend?
Does their wisdom ride again?