I wasn’t being patient—just slow.
– Tony Rabb (Greasy 2013)
His loop lays just long enough to pick-up a second foot
before going to the fire, an acquired art that we appreciate
when the calves are big and feeling good in the spring.
Most drawing Social Security, we’ve grown gray
in these corrals, not near as quick to get our slack
and dally as in the old days, our hoots and hollers
not near as loud—yet still in the middle of no where.
Eagles must wonder how much longer we’ll carry on
this ceremony, gathering cows and calves to brand
in these corrals, looking down from their rock
on the mountain. The old oaks have given-up
some shade, lost limbs corded-up for decades
of branding fires—yet remember the stories like
Homer prone to pontificate, propped against the trunk
as a rattlesnake slowly coiled between his legs.
A fine line between patient and slow, we know
our ground and where the cattle used to break,
but don’t try anymore—all pleased to find our speed.
drycrikjournal 