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Cowboy Poetry With
Baxter Black
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It's the Law |
by Baxter Black |
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There is a state law on the books in Colorado that makes it illegal for a sheepherder to abandon his sheep without notice.
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A good law, really, since herders are often left alone on isolated ranges with their entrusted band. The owner or boss usually checks on him once a week or so an brings him supplies. So, it would certainly create serious consequences were the sheep to be deserted and untended for any length of time.
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But, to the uninformed-non-sheep people, that is-this law might seem a little unclear.
It could be interpreted to
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mean that the herds much notify his sheep before leaving them, to prevent emotional trauma, possible, social breakdown, or obscure ovine behavioral disorders.
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Tom comply with the law, he might line them up and give a sort of "going away speech:"
"My fellow ewes, lambs, and bucks. I have called you together to make an announcement. At approximately noon today, I intend to abandon you.
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"It has not been an easy decision. I lay in my camp pondering the effect it would have on the herd. I agonized over leaving something we've both worked so hard to establish. The caring and sincere bond we've formed that has made my job such a pleasure. The chuckles we have had and the times we've cried.
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"I've asked a lot of you. At lambing, marking, and shearing, not to mention the time you all got foot-rot. Tough times. But you all gave it your best effort and survived. And, I think y'all are better sheep for the experience.
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"But people, just like sheep, grow and change. My needs are different, my horizons have expanded. I hope to enroll in a welding course at Community College and follow my star.
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"I'm leaving you in good hands-or hooves, as it were. Paulita, I expect you to take over. You've been a strong example to the other ewes. Always first to water, first to new grass, and always willing to listen to the baa's and bleatings of others.
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"Leadership is not an easy mantle to wear. And followers, you too, must blindly trust your leader and follow her like... well, like sheep. |
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"You mush work as a cohesive unit, sticking to the instinctive survival traits of prey, always remembering, just like in any bureaucracy, that the group is more important thn the individual. It is your strength and will prevent you form becoming another fractionated, dysfunctional herd.
"In conclusion, it was just my job. To protect you from predators; coyotes, the BLM, deer hunters, and the like. But your gratitude is humbling. That gratitude is what I will carry with me from this day forward. Words cannot express my thanks for your overwhelming display of affection. After all, how many of us can claim to have six hundred ram lambs named Juan in their horror?" |
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Read comments or post your own comments to this article at the bottom of this page. |
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Baxter Black, was born in 1945 in a Brooklyn Naval Hospital, NY, as his dad was in the Navy. Baxter likes to say his birthday is on the second Friday of each January. He grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico and rode bulls in high school and college. As Baxter tells it, he spent most of his working life in the mountains west tormenting cows. Black now lives in Arizona and travels the country tormenting cowboys. He was trained as a large-animal veterinarian at New Mexico State University and Colorado State University, graduating in 1969. His first column was published in July 1980 in the Record Stockman , Denver, Colorado. Baxter explains: "The last company where I was working as a tech veterinarian changed hands and let me go. I was doing speaking on the side and people just kept calling, so here I am." |
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Since then, he has published over a dozen books of fiction, poetry, and commentary. He is a regular commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and also hosts a syndicated weekly radio program, Baxter Black on Monday, and writes a syndicated weekly DAILY NEWSpaper column, "On the Edge of Common Sense." He also hosts a program on RFD-TV. |
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Baxter Black can shoe a horse, string a barbed wire fence and bang out a Bob Wills classic on his flat top guitar. |
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Copyright © 2008 All rights reserved. The above article is the property of the Author and may not be duplicated or redistributed in any way without permission. |
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