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Cowboy Poetry and Western Verse
Bunkhouse Christmas
Harris Tobias
Now a bunkhouse is a barren place
Not all like a regular home
No fancy stuff, no gewgaws
It’s Spartan to the bone
Christmas in the bunkhouse
Was never much to see
Some mesquite and prickly pear
Was all we had for greenery
I think it was young Tim‘s idea
“There’s somethin' that we need.”
So he went out with his lasso
And roped a tumbleweed
He dragged it in and set it up
In a corner by the stove
It wasn’t much to look at
But we weren’t either, I suppose
“The thing looks down right scrawny,”
Was what Lefty said.
“We need to spruce it up with stuff
And took his spurs off of a peg.”
He hung his spurs on the tumbleweed
The rest of us did the same
Then we added silver buckles
And it didn’t look so lame
Cookie showed us all a trick he’d learned
Over at the old Bar Bee
He cut some stars from a pie tin
And hung them on the tree
“Be nice to have some tinsel”
“We got barbed wire in the shed”
“You can’t use no barbed wire”
“Why not?” the cowboy said
“Cause Christmas ain’t about fences
Fencin’ out or fencin’ in
Ain’t you never heard the sayin’
Peace on Earth good will toward men?”
So we didn’t use barbed wire
And that was fine with me
As we stood around admirin’
Our cowboy Christmas tree
“Somethin’s missin’,” said a fellow,
“She needs somethin’ at the top”
The guy was right, we scratched our heads
What else have we got?
There were boots and coats and jackets
For it was as cold as it could be
There were guns and tools and lariats
But nothing for the tree
“I’ve just the thing,” said Cookie
Not the sharpest mind in the pack
And he walked over to the closet
And pulled out his new white hat
He went over to our humble tree
And stuck his hat on top
And though we weren’t looking for perfection
Perfection’s what we got
Now cowboys are a resourceful bunch
Uninhibited and free
Who else could turn a tumbleweed
Into a Christmas tree?
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