Cowboy poetry…

 Cowboy poetry….

The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering just finished in Elko, Nevada…the 38th year…

Our family lived in Elko basically from 1976 through my husband’s death in 2012 with a bit of time in Oregon going back  to school and parent care…we went to some of those gatherings…they featured cowboys from all over the world, telling of their culture, songs, traditions…from the French to the Mongolian throat singers to the Argentinian Gauchos to the Floridian  Crackers, from Native American to the Black cowboys…from the southwestern, Texan, Californian…different clothing, hats, boots, saddles and gear…

We went on ranch tours around the county, feeding cattle in January snow storms, hosted by ranch wives and their amazing food, ate dinners cooked over coals in cast iron pots..

The gathering features library day for the preschoolers, Cowboy church, poetry sessions going on throughout the town, plays, poetry workshops for all ages, cooking sessions of various cowboy cultures, fiddlers, markets of wares, musical shows, dancing, art shows, and just plain gatherings where people exchange friendships from far and wide…people from all over the world attend as well as local poets and interested parties.

The poetry was down to earth, unfiltered at times,  a love of God and country,  but the love of the cultures was and is evident…Baxter Black, Waddie Mitchell, Jack Walther, and dozens more filled out the schedules…

Thank YOU for the wonderful memories….

BETHLEHEM PINE, a cowboy Christmas poem by Stephen Bly



 

I was camped out in the Dakota snow

When Christmas Eve rolled around.

Me and Slim and a dog named Flop,

Three days ride from town.

 

Not a tree in sight for thirty miles,

As we huddled in the draw.

The chips ran out the day before;

We was burnin’ twisted straw.

 

Oh, it was cold, I’m here to say

And gettin’ kind of scary

As we hunkered down in our bedrolls

on that deserted, lonely prairie.

 

Slim was convinced we’d never live

to see the light of day.

He shook my hand, scratched Flop’s ear,

and then commenced to pray.

 

I have to admit it got to me

and I was feelin’ mighty low.

A frozen corpse out on the sage

ain’t the way I wanted to go.

 

So I joined with Slim in divine entreat

with a serious prayer or two.

“Lord, we don’t need all that much

… jist a small miracle will do.”

Lookin’ For A Miracle

The dry snow was a blowin’ sideways

when we first heard that sound:

A stutterin’ trot and a scratchin’ noise,

somethin’ drug on frozen ground.

 



The dark outline of a long-eared mule,

who smelled our puny flame,

came draggin’ somethin’ across the snow

and actin’ hugely lame.

 

We scrambled out in the frigid storm

to inspect what we could not see

And found a mule badly bleedin’,

still chained to an evergreen tree.

 

Slim twitched his ear, I pulled the shackle,

while the mule continued to croon

With salve and a half clean flour sack

we doctored that fetlock wound.

 

It was a twelve foot pine he chewed in two,

trying’ to set himself free.

I was thinkin’ the Lord answered our prayers

and sent us cowboys a Christmas tree.

A Mule Named Star

“The mule came from somewhere,”

Slim decreed, with hope upon his brow.

“Unhobbled he’ll know his way back home

and lead us there somehow.”

 

We called him Star, it seemed to fit.

He steered us to the stable.

We didn’t leave ‘til daylight, though,

it was as soon as the mule was able.

 

The tree we branded Bethlehem Pine

and it burnt up hot and slow.

It gave its life that we might live,

like the Savior so long ago.

 

You kin have your symbols of Christmas

with parties and presents at ever’ turn.

Jist give me a mule who knows his way home,

and a cowboy Christmas tree that’ll burn.

 

Stephen Bly

Copyright©2000

Testimony-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwNZZc1z4_o

https://www.allaboutreflections.org/christian-cowboy-poems.htm

https://westernhorseman.com/culture/out-west/a-gathering-of-cowboy-poets/

Cowboy poetry, Elko, Nevada…

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cowboy+poetry%2C+elko%2C+Nevada+

https://exploreelko.com/top-events/cowboy-poetry/

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/wit-wisdom-35th-national-cowboy-gathering/

https://www.nationalcowboypoetrygathering.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_poetry

https://www.westernfolklife.org/blog/2022/5/20/ask-a-cowboy-poet-three-classics