When your ride’n drag through the swelterin’ heat
and you’ve bout had all the dust one-man can eat
When the sweat’s running down from collar to boot
just forty miles gone on a hundred-mile route

The ass ends of cattle is all you can see
and the smell is so strong it makes your nose bleed
When the flies are biting deep into your skin
well now that’s when the doubtin’ really begins

You start to look back o’er the passing of years
remembering the good times, laughter and tears
You think about old friends, love, death and sorrow
glory of the past and unknown tomorrows

Oh, there’ve been choices I wish I’d never made
some bar room fights where I should’ve walked away
Times when I have left though I knew I should stay
too busy drinking when I needed to pray

It’s been mostly all work and not much playing
a whole lot of leaving and not much staying
But if I had it to do over again
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t change a damn thing

Prairie Time – a collection of poems and prose from a wannabee cowboy

Jerry Brotherton

copyright 2020