Cowboy Sunset

Darkness falls,
another day out,
and I am no closer
to what I call home.

Many a man
gets lost in himself
out on the trail,
but I press on,
my limbs hung
like rags, beside
my sunken chest.

I was built for this.

But I can not
go on forever.

They say that I’m
a dying breed,
that in the future
no man will endure
the pain I have.

But for now
I look for safe passage,
and a place along this trail
to bed down for the night.

The jarring sway of
Jacob’s spine beneath me
conveys the broken pathway
of the trail.
We have been through
thick and thin together,
his body a natural
extension of my own.

Dark clouds hang,
but distant clearings
promise fortune for the morn’.