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Cowboy Poetry and Western Verse
The Outlaws
By Bradley McIlwain
I can hear the wind gently ruffle among the thicket,
stirring leaves between thick hollow cut graves,
whispering.
There is an oak tree where the dead men lay:
dark deep roots like chains rattle in the wind
and shout morose songs at the mouth of the sky,
singing home the bones.
I can see the silhouettes
disturbing the dirt with their tarnished boot heels,
six-guns nestled snugly on their waist
having taken their guns with them when they died:
six-feet below the dirt.
You can see most of their handiwork at boot hill,
and read one of the memorable tombstone epitaphs:
Here lies
Lester Moore
4 slugs
from a .44
no less
no more
The lead still tickles the bone:
wounds they could not mend, exposed and rotting
in the hot sand,
sentiments of Smith and Wesson.
They are looking at me starring blankly with those
cold eyes,
looking for their bones that have been replaced by soil
or carried off by wild animals who needed to feed their
young.
I can see them, out there with their scalps toward the
West,
watching the sunrise at the mouth of the Rio Grande.
I am looking through their scalps,
and they are aware of this.
I can hear them weeping, singing home the bones with
their tarnished boot heels,
waiting to be whole again.
There are no heroes here except the dead,
there are no heroes here except the dead,
haunting the mouth of the Rio Grande.
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