WHICH THE WORLD KNOWS NOT;
AND OFTEN TIMES WE CALL A
MAN COLD WHEN HE IS
ONLY SAD.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Bronc to Breakfast” calendars hang faded on the walls
There’s a lost and aimless wandering through the corridors and halls
Of slippered feet that shuffle on a waxed and polished floor
And vacant stares of emptiness from the men who ride no more
Men who once rode proudly-men with long straight backs
Men who covered hill and plain with steel shod horses tracks
Now pass their idle days in rooms with numbers on the door
With orderlies and nurses for the men who ride no more
Time was when spur rowels jingled when boot heels bumped the floor
Dawns with hot black coffee and saddling up at four
With feet in tapaderos and broncs between their knees
And silken neck scarves snapping as they turned into the breeze
From full-blown living legends true to riding for the brand
To the scarcely mediocre who could hardly make a hand
They would gather for the branding or the shipping in the fall
Now it’s walker, cane, and wheelchair in the antiseptic hall
And they all have their mementos on the table by their side
Like a cracked and fading snapshot of a horse he usta ride
Or standing with the wife beside a thirty-seven Ford
A high-heeled boot hooked nonchalant on a muddy running board
Just instants frozen from the past that somehow give a clue
To who and what they were before their riding days were through
Horseback men with horseback rules from horseback days of yore
their one and only wish would be to somehow ride once more
To once more rope a soggy calf and drag it to the fire
To long-trot for half a day and see no post or wire
To ride a morning circle-catch a fresh one out at noon
And trot him in when the day was done to the rising of the moon
To put in one more horseback day and have just one more chance
To ride home to a pretty wife and drive her to the dance
To take her hand and hold her close and waltz across the floor
Before the time to join the ranks of the men who ride no more
Joel Nelson