I know this is not the first time I've led off with the photograph of a Longhorn. They are picturesque critters and I enjoy seeing the colorful beasts in the pasture. This one is in fact a Corriente Cross cow and not a pure Longhorn -- whatever such might be.
Painted and splashed with colors galore
She grazes the Great Southern Plains
Not know how symbolic she stands
Of an era dimmed with age.
Once great herds of clicking horns
Trailed up from the brush
To markets the railways had reached
On their transcontinental quest
Of populating the western reaches
Of a country just beginning to feel
The strength of the mightly economic engine
Swelling with power of imagination
Into the vast unknown lands
Of bewildered tribes who found a new enemy
Much stronger than their ancestral nemises
With whom they had fought for ages.
She and her kind fed the westering hordes
As well as those left behind
In the growing cities where
Food must be imported from elsewhere.
Today, she is as much a relic
As the American Bison
And the painted natives
That she helped to displace.
