Sometimes, when you're a cowboy gunslinger,

all you're left with is your boots and hat

and lariat, your trick paint horse,
your Colt and your Winchester, your bedroll,

the open plain, or mesa, the tins of beans

and strips of cured beef, your sense of justice
for your murdered kin, scalped by marauding

godless injuns, your self-reliance and steely aim

by the riverbed, your tempered and easy masculinity,
your friend the emancipated slave. You've seen

the iron horse and the telegraph cross the maps

and random states and you've seen the sunrise
on the canyons, the noonday dead on the dusty

streets of Texas, the evening cool of the hacienda

and the saloon brawls in the night. You've known
the love of a good-hearted dancing girl, yet you'll die

alone beneath a ridge. You'll leave no estate,

no child, no forlorn wife, no brethren will weep
by your simple grave. Your bedroll is your shroud,

the open plain your chapel. And all that is left

will be your hat and boots and lariat.