Confluence of Winds
You Will See Cowboys Coming
When you quarry a fresh frontier
you will see cowboys coming
down off the horizon--
bandits and thieves in another great stretch
of heat and sand and curses.
They will come down riding 400 horses
flanked and padded with their bounties
and the blessings of the ignorant and
self-absolving,
calling them heroes.
There for the purse--all.
When the sky is black, and the water--
blood-warm--
sealed in the canteen,
they ride, into the darkness;
and behind locked doors, and quiet
to seem dead from the street--
with their great hats,
and shooting eyes,
you will see cowboys coming.
The mass, romantic, looking into the sun
far away, removed,
yellow,
find him amongst the thunderclaps
of pain and permanence--
lightning,
shrill and high,
and delivering a dying man's truth
to the mountains--
the son that they must love.
Nature what it is,
harsh and grit in eyes, ears, teeth--
the slow devolution of a granite will
flung into the sky
white
grey
and black--
and red
and orange
and then, again, yellow.
You will see cowboys coming,
to and from, with clamor and promise
and a great spirit on wings
soaring behind them,
blinded in the wind.