Page Two
The following three poems come from the first of five books of poetry by S. Omar Barker.
He titled the book, Vientos de las Sierras (Winds of the Mountains): Poems of New
Mexico, and it was published by him in 1924.
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Sometimes I think the Demon from his inky pit
Has wriggled up to howl his curses through the night,
Or maybe that some poor lost soul is doomed to flit
In outer dark, and wails to heaven his dismal plight.
Beyond my cabin walls I know the pines are still,
And through their branches shines the moon with goulish light--
Ah! how the cry that rises through them from the hill
Unnerves me! I shiver, although not with fright.
Because I know, despite the terror in that call
That chills my blood and makes me draw the covers tight,
The fiendish yell and ghastly, ghostly wail are all
Some hungry, lonely coyote howling in the night.
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Traced in the flicker of greasewood fire,
The Cowboy Kid saw his heart's desire.
Still but a lad at a play cow camp,
His ears heard the milling remuda's stamp,
And he knew his heart would know no rest
Till he could scratch 'em along with the best;
And over the shouldered mesas ride,
His saddle a-creak with his horse's stride:
A boy a-dream for the time when he
Could answer the range's witchery.
II
Ruddled there by a hearthfire's flame,
Grizzled and old as a Salem dame,
His hair as whitish as alkali,
The Cowboy Kid sees his past go by.
He smells the sage from the mesa's rim,
And the days come tumbling back to him;
Days that were tanged with the smell of hair,
Burnt till the brand came clean and fair;
Nights that were droned with a milling herd--
His feeble heart within him stirred--
Out of the phantoms in the flame
Into his soul the old call came.
III
Oh, a heart knows not when a body is old,
And riding days are a tale that is told--
For now he would saddle and over the hill,
Ride to the ranges that beckoned him still.
There by the fire as he fell asleep,
The old man's pulses ceased their sweep
Of cowboy blood through his leathered veins.
A west wind called from his sage-brush plains,
And off to dim ranges of mounted men,
The Cowboy Kid rode forth again.
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I hear folks measure up their friends
And foes, both men and ladies;
For some they foretell happy ends,
For many, Hades.
This man, they say, is truly bad!
He cusses and plays poker.
That fellow there is lost--poor lad--
He's such a smoker.
That woman paints her face, and thus
Her character besmirches.
(They pin the label "hell" on us
Who dodge the churches.)
They classify the bad and good
By catalogues of vices,
And smother human brotherhood
In moral crises.
They growl at jolly songs we sing--
Who knows what right or wrong is?
The human heart's a greater thing
Than any song is.
Now here's a measure, friends, for man,
That's short and sweet and snappy:
That one is good who, when he can,
Makes others happy.
Forget the old vice catalogue--
One evil's like another--
Thank God for every man--or dog--
Who loves his brother.
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