Cowboy Dad

“Those people need to be wormed,”

My ornery Texas Dad grins,

Then laughs, then talks to me.

How I love my old man’s humor,

As he banter’s on his life trials,

A working soul that is free.

He loves his Cowboy books and tall tales,

My Squinting, twinkling Cowboy dad,

He is now somewhat slow to see.

Oh! His life was hard work and still is,

At dawn fighting blasted Fire Ants,

Killing these varmints with his pee.

Humor extends 90 years of just being,

Help build America’s Freeways,

Riding the back of a Caterpillar.

A scratch and a chuckle and a toothless grin,

“Don’t know much, maybe never did,

Young, I was quite a heller.”

His home has got the better of him.

He says, “It’ll keep and I sleep

And not much rain.”

Knowing kinship close to end, my eye’s water,

For my old Texas Cowboy dad,

Who just ignores the pain.

Roland James April 2001