"Pioneers To Be Proud Of"

Gone the thunder of the great herds
Lost to me the farmer on his knees
Brown the earth tilling with a plough,

The seeds scattered over the ground
Amongst the leafless trees to freeze
Showering rays that filled the sky.

A swift bird flying down to feed
There at the edge of the ocean
Seeing salt drying in the wind,

Beneath the sunrise in the sky
The echoing canyons like bells
Ringing this sound in my mind -

Absent reins within empty hands
A ghostly spur jingling at my heel
Shed the gun a feather for my pen,

Writing a memory of another being
The person was mysteriously me
Far from the happy home I adored,

Crying myself to sleep and dream
The child in my mother's arms
Our new home upon that shore,

Dad teaching me how to hunt
And fill the larder for the winter
His test for me to be the owner.

Inherited from my grandparents
The pioneers of the farming region
Their new home high up in heaven,

My memories of their love for me
The lonely child seeing the herds
Wandering the plains so long ago.