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Why do you Keep Him?


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for Sheepdogging Geezer- Because he encouraged me! And I may not be able to paste but I can type one fingered.

 

( This poem is based on a man my father bought a colt off of in Northern California. This old man also raised cattle and had the dogs. These stories I like best. Poems made up of lives )

 

 

Why do you keep him?

That old dog

Burrs in his tail

Hitch in his trot

 

He is not a powerful dog

 

Why do you keep him?

 

 

 

I keep him because

When I speak

He looks into my eyes

And listens

 

I look back

and

He is always there

 

 

 

When I get into my truck

he jumps in beside me

 

When I saddle a horse he waits

watching

 

When the stock is rough,

and days are long

Hot

Wet

Freezing

 

He tries

 

I’ve seen my grandchild’s hand slide down his back,

and my wife give him gravy at Christmas

 

I shattered my hip when a colt, newly started, dumped my old bones into a fence

I was laid up for months

 

he lay near me

And sometimes

I counted the hours by his slow wagging tail.

 

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