A Cowboy Good-Bye

A Cowboy Good -Bye

We’ve made the call,
The boys are on the way
From across the high Absarokas
To the flat lands far away.
Most should be here
In just a day or two,
With stories just abustin;,
‘Bout their trails rode with you.
They’ve honored me the first shot Of tellin’ what I knew
And if I stretch the facts some,
Well you’d have done it too.
Now as people go
I’ve knowed few finer,
As straight and as true.
Na, just ain’t many the likes of you.
To none were you a master
And well, masters you had none. ‘Cept for the Big Boss,
Out beyond the sun.
You know I.
Well, I don’t rightly recall
When your door wasn’t open
From now back to when, well; I was quite small.
Seems you was always there
With open heart and hand.
To share the burdens that we bear And lift us up; to make our stand.
Now 1 know
There are horses you didn’t ride,
Fish left to grow.
You’ve left us those, and your family pride.

Now I could go on like this,
But ya see, the rest of the fellers
Are awaiten and won’t miss their chance. Some are fair story tellers.
I won’t say goodbye; just see you later,
When its my time to go; saddle up and ride.
We’ll all see you on the shore; with rod, reel and rope At the lake of the Great Divide.
-Douglas Bleak-

Hidden Trails

HIDDEN TRAILS
Way beyond the Blue Horizon
Past the veiling Timber Line
Lies the country of my homeland
Mountain solitudes sublime.
From the vast and snowy ranges
Hidden trails are calling me
They are waking ancient echoes
Of a lifetime wild and free.
I can hear the voiceless whisper
Cross the burning desert sands
Through the unfamiliar forests
Over many distant lands.
The soundless voice will follow
Over land or sea or foam
And whereever I may wander
Hidden trails will call me home.
Bonnie White Bleak ;
18 Years old when this was written

The Cowboy

The Cowboy

His days are filled with sunshine

The nights a pool of stars

He thinks little of television,

Airplanes, boats or cars.

He listens to the songdog’s melody

Night on every night.

His dreams are filled with pretty girls,

Faraway, out of sound and sight.

He knows the smell of saddle leather,

Pine, sage and cow.

He is a where a man, is his own,

To few if any, would he bow.

If you know one of these,

Hold his memory dear!

For many do not come along.

And most have packed up their gear.

-by Douglas Bleak-

A SOLDIER’S PRAYER FOR HOME

A SOLDIER’S PRAYER FOR HOME

Way beyond the far horizon
Way beyond the timber line,
Lies the country of my homeland
Mountain solitudes sublime.
From the vast and snowy ranges
Hidden trails are calling me
Hear them waking ancient echoes
Of a lifetime--wild and free.
‘ In this wilderness of wonder
There the curse of fear is shed
Lives my heart clean as the glacires
Though my soul is steeped in blood.
Steeped in blood of many soldiers
Though I learned to call them Foe
They have stained my hand deep crimson
And that stain will never go.
In the blue and purple twilight
I can’t hear the stifled yell
Of a comrade gone to glory
From this bloody battle hell.
Way beyond the far horizon
Let me live beneath the sky
It’s a prayer— Oh God please grant it
Then I’ll more than gladly die.
Send me back into the mountain
Far to heaven goes my cry——
Send me homeward to my mountains
There I’ll more than gladly die.
Bonnie White Bleak
Written in 1942 during WWII