Talk about the wild west,
talk about the plains,
talk about the bygone Indian days;
there never was a time we couldn’t see
in our mind’s eye
the tribes passing, rambling
through that outstretched land,
staying and settling,
never was a time we couldn’t feel
the anger of that tomahawking
wild and wooly holdup age;
the rage that never ended until death
lost nations, destroyed the old ways,
the broad paths, the houses, the tepees,
the very remains of the hearths
broken in the dust.

It’s gone now
and now we only see
the piebald horses, the rust-colored
run by the buttes
as spring snipes away
at the Rockies; twittering birds
eat what they can find,
whatever’s left on the ground.
Sweet grass comes up timely
for the cows lowing and eating
and we talk about the wild west
to the takers of the land,
to the sad remnants of bygone nations.

Lady Look, lovely messenger,
reigns over hill and dale,
towns and mountains;
spring’s mansion of leaves
and blooms fills, blossoms out;
dogwood trees white, white
like fallen parachutes
lift up their plumage
to the warming sun;
daffodils spread lavish light.

Spring besieges summer,
more, more, it asks,
presses for more beauty and life,
newness, the colors of the rainbow,
the paleness of the new moon,
the red-winged blackbird,
the oriole, all showing the world they bring
and we sing old cowboy songs
to the takers of the land,
to the sad remnants
of bygone nations.

O skipping lamb, cakewalk
by the broken shopping carts;
with your small hooves, click, click,
show the asphalt you’re the boss.

Nevertheless, never endless
the reign of spring ends,
the bird notes slow,
dwindled away by the sleepy summer
heat, drowsy the trees barely shrug,
the tar melts on the roads.

Only misbegotten seeming
perennials apprehend
the end of a proud race;
heads of flowers and men
gay only for a while,
knowing the cycle of bygone days,
heads drooping already in dreams
of root-clutching cold, change of seasons,
the end of an age, a way of life,
the end of the wild west we knew,
caught in lifeless tightfisted memories
and we talk about the wild west,
talk about the plains
to the takers of the land,
to the sad remnants
of bygone nations.