For Their Brand

Straight from the Horse's Heart

Original, Timely Poem by Rob Pliskin

I don’t need to see more horses run
Or watch another mare take an icy fall,
A burro fleeing like an outlaw from some lawman’s gun
When living the life God gave them’s no crime at all.

And I don’t need more video time
To tell me the difference between wrong and right,
Portraying more dirty work on the taxpayer’s dime
To sell the innocence of horses into their darkest night.

Who are they, who about the wild ones can’t feel,
Who if not taking lives, then take their souls?
And who are we to let them equivocate and steal
All our jacks and stallions, our jennys and mares, and our foals?

No longer this: out riding fence, out where the wind’s the only sound,
While the silent tears freeze on your face,
For steel hooves never again to touch the ground,
As hopeful legislation falls from grace.

Instead I ask good citizens, what must we take in hand,
We who believe in all truth and goodwill,
We who have always saddled up and ridden for the brand,
How for our compadres can we do it still?

What of us, what now are we to do?
When foremen have so completely lost their way
Traded boots for low heeled shiny shoes
And no longer show their faces to a Western day?

Is it time now to assemble at the first chirp of morning song,
And gather at the fire long before first light?
Find the faces of our friends as our cavvy greets the dawn
And together mount up to make some filly’s morning bright?

And some colt’s too, make a day filled with peace and shine,
The wild perfect welcome of old home,
Where the sound of greedy blades will forever never whine
And double barreled trucks no longer roam.

Time to buy back your old saddle, or pick it up and get
The kit down that reminds you you got sand.
For every wild horse and burro your children haven’t met,
It’s time to ride like there’s no tomorrow for their brand.