Songs of the Siskiyous - Cowboy Poems from the Top of California

Edited by Living Gold Press

From a wide-open and thinly populated part of Northern California comes Songs of the Siskiyous. Read these poems aloud for a taste of life in a land where cows and trees outnumber people, where ranching and logging are still major occupations, where hunting trips and cattle drives and rodeo dances are events long to be remembered. The poems range from funny to sentimental, irreverent to touching. They come from the heart.

With a Cowboy, by Carol Oxley

Cowboys come in all sizes and shapes
Short, tall, thin, skinny, or fat,

What connects them all is a love of the land,
And boots, jeans, chaps, bandanna, and hat.

They toil in all weather from dawn to dark,
Value a good dog and good horse,

They love camp cooked vittles and clear sunny days,
And most all love their wives, of course.

A cowboy’s wife is long-suffering,
Taking a back seat to the stock,

A wise woman will follow her man around
Helping with chores and ignoring the clock.

Now a cowboy’s wife can go for days,
With shrugs and grunts for communication.

She looks at her man as the strong silent type,
But wait! There is an aberration.

He talks to his horse as he jogs along,
He talks to his stock dog, too.

He talks to the birds, to the frogs, to the cows,
What is a cowboy’s wife to do?

I pondered this problem for many a year,
And finally found us a way,

For our cowboys to give us more than two words,
We must learn to bark, or moo, or neigh!