Cowboy Poets of the New West

Image: SCOTT BAXTER

"Every January since 1985, cowboys, rodeo riders, ranchers, and poets have convened to recite poems and share songs with fans and one another at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering at the convention center here. Dozens of other events around the country celebrate cowboy poetry, but the Elko event is widely regarded as the biggest one."

EXCERPT: “A CEMETERY IN SOUTHWEST MONTANA” 

Souls whisper their welcome, kindly, softly
As you pass underneath lovely, lofty
Spruce bows, braided together by time
Memories dancing amid shafts of light
That sift through the branches and between the trunks
Trunks lining your path like humble, hushed monks
But they alone are silent for the air is filled
With nature’s chorus and the sounds of the hills
The wind in duet with yet uncut grass
Chickadees chatter a happy hymn as you pass
A solemn note is added by the cry of an eagle
As you move down the hall of the great spruce cathedral
Some churches take hundreds of years to complete
And thousands of lives devoted to the feat
But these trees, too, have taken an epoch to grow
And the care of generations and diverted water flow
To somehow sustain this temple of conifer
On an otherwise parched hillside bereft of any cover
And now within the towering walls of evergreen
Is a basilica lined with lilacs looking nearly Florentine
That needs no mosaics or frescos as it looks over the valley
Range grasses and wildflowers adorn all the alleys
That run between markers of miners and ranchers
This valley’s history rooted deep in these ancestors
—Brigid Reedy

Read More: Alta Online

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