Night Rider Poem by Ron Wallace

You can’t fence years in with wire
or build stone walls to hold them back.
They move like mavericks, rough hooves
across soft earth.
Some are sharp horned
and will hook you if they can,
but most are slow and easy going.
Their drive just rolls on
until the stampede breaks across the plain.
If I weren’t so damned old,
I’d saddle up my sorrel pony
and slow down their wild, headlong run;
turn the herd back to yesterday.
I’d cut the best from packed corrals,
burn a brand on my own small bunch
and move them into wide and grassy pastures
where I’d make camp among the chosen,
beneath fields of night and stars
ride out among the horns
and sing the world to sleep.