exploring the West in my stick horse dreams
I gallop not so swiftly over the prairies
and sip from the cactus pear new starlight
I am free to arbitrate a lasting peace
for the Comanche, the dreaming tribes
as free as a person not so good on horseback ever can be
with my stick horse trilby with the rubied eyes
set in her felt pieced head,
her silver pink reins...
I sing all the folksongs we ever learned in grade school
like the lone prairie, and the drinking gourd
and oh it's true that I am never bored
with making bad coffee every time
to drink from a rusty tin cup and sup on
canned baked beans
and know that everything is fine
thanks to retro tv
among the Ponderosa pines
you may make fun of me
and say its a foolish thing for
a grown person to do
but you dont know how lovely it remains
to pretend I am
the horsewoman of the Plains
and tag a long happy on the wagon trains
with the scripts so refined
safe from the blizzards every time
the code of the West is mine o mine.
mary angela douglas 22 february 2023
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