GROWING UP COWBOY (3)

little boy throws in with herd of wild ones

 

GROWING UP COWBOY  (3)

 

Sky growing black on the horizon, storm

coming, horses restless, lightning cracks,

thunder pealing across the plain.

 Had just spooked a herd of wild horses.

The wild ones sniffing the air, prancing,

throwing their heads, sniffing. 

They smell the storm, the damp air and

they want to run.  

 

One great excitement for a little boy is to

just throw in with a bunch of wild range

horses and run with them before the wind.

 

The rain and hail hit , driving hard, the

horses running wild, thunder rumbles on

our tail and we run, the thunder of hoofs

mingled with claps of thunder and lightning

and we run.

 

All day exploring the prairie.  Soaked from

the storm, the sun soon dries boy and

horses.

 

An ancient Indian sits his pony, the picture

of "End of The Trail".   He sits on a high

ridge, head down, the horse stands with rear

to the wind also head down.   The small boy

approaches, stops a hundred feet back,

raises right hand and speaks, "how Kola".

The old Indian known as, Puts On His Shoes,

seeming still in reverie, raises his hand with

the universal sign of greeting, "how Kola".

 

Boy approaches slowly, turns his horse so

tail is to the wind and the two "men" sit in

communion.

Finally the old one speaks, "shunka ka",

with an appraising glance at the little boys

"good horse".

The little boy grins and replies, "wan inch".

 

Finally the boy raises hand with palm toward

"Putsy", wheels his horse and gallops off.

They will meet many times in the wind and

rain far out on the desolate plain.

 

Miles away, as he tops a butte, he startles

a family of prairie wolves, parents and four

cubs.  They try to run but the old ones have

to travel slow because of the cubs.

He sits atop the butte, breathing his horse

as he watches the wolf family picking through

the great fields of prairie cactus.  The wolves

stop, turn, point their noses at the sky and

sing their mournful, plaintive song-------------

 

end (3)                   cont. (4)

-----John Crowley

Reviews

[Blackbirdsong]

"How Kola" is not a universal greeting. "How" isn't even a Native American word but is a bastardized form of "Hau" which is Lakota for "hello" that is used in cowboy movies and westerns. "Kola" is also a Lakota word and it means "friend." I know some say "Hau" is a universal greeting among Natives, but honestly most of us our own words of greeting and not some universal term.

I know some Lakota language and I always learned that "skunka" meant dog and the Lakota word for horse is "S�nkaw�kan."

Here is an online Lakota language resource where you can hear how it's prounounced -
http://language.nativeweb.org/Lakota_hear.htm

Of course some will no doubt think badly of me for writing this since many on this site believe that is wrong to say anything but bravo. I didn't write this to be mean-spirited in anyway, but some will see it that way. Hopefully you don't.

Mitakuye Oyasin

[Eagle Cruagh]

I was raised on the Reservation. Most of my friends were Sioux. We did not learn to speak in school, we spoke what the words sounded like to us.
No I don`t take offense at correction or criticism.
I am glad to hear what is probably nearer the truth. I just write what I remember as a little boy.
Thank you
---- Eagle Cruagh

[Tracie Skarbo]

I agree with Orlando...I too wish to be this boy and see and feel what he is living. I love that he has such a free spirit and that it is not swallowed by the massive landscape but rather made greater because of it. I can smell the rain, horses, and grass of the plain.

Tigra

[R J Askew]

Great read. I loved the spirt of freedom in nature's wide open spaces with all the wild drama of the elements a-raging overhead spurring the horses. The best part is the sense of being a part of it all, which you capture perfectly. And of solitude. All of which is marvellously contrasted in the presence of the old indian and the easy rapport between age and youth. The old man seems as much a part of natural landscape as the horses and the sky and the boy seems to know this, too, instinctively. The poem made me want to actually experience something of the moment it describes.