~ Where the Cowboys Live…


There’s only so many ways I can write a song
about a cowboy riding his horse cross the range
Are there any new words I can use to describe
the rugged mountains that tower over the plains

What else can I say about them icy cold rivers
that rapidly flows down from a snow covered peak
Or the beauty of a simple life just living
in a line shack right next to a slow running creek

To tell you the feeling after a hard days ride
the warmth of the camp roll that I made for a bed
The sight of a full moon rising over the hill
the cattle standing still and my belly well fed

Is there another way to express how I feel
bout all them stars a shinin’ up there in the sky
Or about how nature lulls me to sleep each night
with the howl of a coyote or a night hawk’s cry

How many more stanzas can it possibly take
until you understand what a glorious sight
Seeing all them old cowboys that you call your friend
telling jokes and stories round the campfire at night

Heck, I suppose it don’t matter what rhymes I use
or trying to find some new words for me to give
You ain’t never gonna know lest you come out here
to the tall grass and live the way the cowboys live

~ Just Another Cowboy…

Riding out among the tall grass and sage
I came on a pile of old cowboy’s bones
No grave was dug and there was no marker
to say who it was that died here alone

I wonder if when his final light blinked
was there someone who held his memory
or was he just a lonley old cowboy
who roamed o’er this vast Montana prairie

Did he have a woman he left behind
to shed a tear or cry out in sorrow
were there any children who might want to
carry his name into their tomorrow

Or maybe he had folks back in the east
Who hadn’t heard from him in many years
where his mamma mourned her son every night
praying for him through eyes filled up with tears

Whoever he was will never be known
so I unmounted and dug him a grave
I wrapped his bones up in my camp blanket
on a bended knee a prayer I gave

Lord would you please watch over this man’s soul
as he rides your herd through eternity
Where the grass is green and the water’s sweet
Cause he’s just another cowboy like me

~ Slim…

Slim was an old Texas cowboy
had traveled cross this country some
Said he roamed the range all his life
and to ‘Montana he had come

Cause down south it’s hard to figure
what caused so much stink and shoutin
Wanted to see for he got old
this big sky, prairies and mountains

He’d heard about Little Bighorn
where Custer fought them Indians
The Great Continental Divide
and secret Gates of the Mountains

There’s this here place called Glacier Park
with its Going to the Sun Road
By being that close to heaven
could it really be all that cold

Then there’s them three rivers where the
Missouri waters gits her start
And that Russell fella who paints
all them pictures of western art

Sure would like to see Yellowstone
they say that’s quite a sight to see
Where water goes a shootin out
the ground hotter ‘n ole Hades

Not to mention all them critters
like wolves, moose, elk and grizzly bear
Goats that can climb straight up a cliff
perch like a dab blamed eagle there

You folks got this here Chinese wall
a sight that I just gotta see
Thousand foot tall in the center
of a million acres of trees

Got some mountain canyons that are
bigger ‘n most cities around
Herds of wild horses runnin cross
the land make a thunderous sound

At night they say a trillion stars
show thousands of Buffalo graze
They move along so graceful like
through warm and sunny summer days

I said let me warn ya ole Slim
we got things here you won’t believe
But once you lay your eyes on them
you sure ain’t gonna want to leave

Pert near twenty winters have gone
since Slim came to Rockin Bar J
I placed bitterroot on his grave
when we laid him to rest today

Slim might have been born in Texas
and that is quite all right by me
He died a Montana cowboy
in this place where he chose to be

This story, Slim and the Rockin’ Bar J are fragments of this ‘wannabee cowboys’ imagination.

~ After the storm…

That storm had my heart beating
as I rode herd through the night
All that rumbling of thunder
and savage flashes of light

The darkness felt uneasy
as drenching rain fell in shrouds
And with each flash of lightning
I saw thick black boiling clouds

Well the storm has passed on by
and morning drifts o’er the plain
I sit here in my saddle
tired and damp from last night’s rain

Gazing across this landscape
where everything’s been washed clean
There’s a mist on the mountains
so heavy they can’t be seen

The cattle graze peacefully
day rises over the hills
Under this low hanging sky
my world sits silent and still

From between my horses ears
in this gray light of the day
I see all of God’s glory
so I bow my head to pray

To thank God for seeing fit
to bring me through that dark night
Letting me witness once more
his majestic morning light

Sometimes it makes me wonder
how Heaven could truly be
anything more glorious
than this valley is to me

~ Them out-of-staters…

All them foreigners that move here
they always tell me that they’ve come
a searching for open spaces
cause cities made ’em feel so numb

They came out here to Montana
to a place where they could feel free
to bulldoze out the pristine streams
and to chop down the Aspen trees

To tear away the lodge pole pine
ponderosas and tamarack
to dig away the mountain side
and cram their houses back to back

They flatten out the rolling hills
to build a shopping mall or two
Built all them buildings so damn tall
their blocking out the mountain view

They’ve taken all the wildflowers
and laid down asphalt and cement
put solar panels on their roofs
’cause they save the environment

Should a deer wander into town
they want the law to do the deed
cause having wild critters around
is something that they just don’t need

They say that they feel better now
with all the beauty they can see
by sitting in their sealed off rooms
watchin’ nature shows on TV