LIFE OFFERS SIMPLE REWARDS

...watching woodpeckers at work on dead pine trees...eating muscadines on the cowboy couch the one that caused Martha Stewart to get a whiplash as she drove past and lastly being cooled by squirrels with church fans that was left at a Holy Ghost filled tent revival with my hounds in arms...

Pine Hills of Louisiana

pine hills of Louisiana...travel this parkway last night to Many...not more...just Many, one of the last small towns in far Western Louisiana, about the only big box is one Wally Mart...They had a Colgate County Show, unfortunately, most of the talent even though it was good, was directed to the new Nashville style; and many of us are very opinionated towards the commercial aspects of that; not being judgmental, but many of us feel that Nashville, as towards the music, was created by high craft musicians, (Hank Williams to Rose Maddox) and without those legends, the "industry" would not be there for these current, pop tart singers with pretty faces to try to make it...the new parkway is not fully completed, but the local blue light crowd was eager to give a welcome with "you were speeding as you rolled over the hill", fully aware to get over those north bound red clay hills, one has to accelerate, its called momentum, and naturally, you will be over the posted limit when you hit the crest and their radar guns...such is the saga of much of rural USA...if the locals were given a free pass, but rarely is this is done, and this being just outside of Fort Polk, where so many have put the uniform on, they two must pay the price to be free, to crest those rising red clay hills amid those pine forests...Liberty is not free...

Cadillacs to Cattleracks

Cadillacs to Cattle Racks

Modes of transportation,
varies as much as the terrain,
fords and dodges,
traverse across the plains,
these pickups of transport,
bringing forth the savage,
and their cargo to town.

Doctors and lawyers,
with their gentleness,
attributes acquired of their fineness,
had big machines,
sedans of glandure,
to parade down the streets of town.

Ladies with their bonnets,
drive past the motley crew,
with upturn snouts,
for what they smelt,
was neither roses or daliahs,
for those children on the racks,
were wenching of stench,
as they drove past.

These fords and dodges,
damaged to the hitch,
rusted from outdoor exposures,
eventually, retired to the back fence,
alters of clinder blocks,
with ententions to salvage later.

Come early Sunday,
the roads are aline with these,
vehicles of transport,
rusted pickups and cadillacs,
all heading to the same church,
stepping out of the Cadillacs,
citizens so refined in their best,
and off of the cattle racks,
enter the herd,with washed faces,
all adorn with ranch perfume.

and thus Andrea Graham spoke:

she spoke, words fumed from her mouth,
a bovine poet she was,
while others stood about,
both sides of the fence she uddered,
and not even a stutter,
as she spokes these words from the stage,
both sides of the fence, not even a craze,
with these words committed from this barb,
the mind raced back, from a distance yard,
as a young pony that raced the fence,
escaping to race to the river so far,
and stand watching at the rivers edge,
a vision across the rivers,
there on the western side.

he stood,there upon the Eastern shore,
watching the bovine herd,
one mighty bull, with cows in tow,
traverse across the Sabine waters,
swimming to this eastern shore,
for they knew on this side of this river fence,
was greener pastures of plenty,
here in NO MANS LAND.

they swam those muddy waters,
all in a movement, a herd,
no bellowing did they make,
with voices that were singing,
I'm leaving ole Texas now,
they got no use for the Longhorn Cow,
we will follow the lead of this Longhorn Bull,
rising upon that eastern bank,
with this Longhorn Bull in lead,
we will wade through catfish sloughs,
and panther filled cane breaks,
to those promised pastures of plenty,
where endless prairie do flow,
amid tall, tall pine trees,
and where the mighty crowfoot violet grows.

we rather be where the way sider lay,
than to march together so afraid,
up to the Llano plateau,
where Comanches gather and raid,
round campfires and bison herds,
with fast arrows that fly,
thru the wind and mesquite,
where many of us will die,
there on that high Mesquite plain.

oh to wade that water fence,
there to the other side,
where prairies of green,
that long and await to be grazed,
by Longhorns who cherish,
to live, to live free,
amid those tall, tall pine trees,
that sway so gently,
in a warm summer breeze.