Some poetic thoughts on the "real" cowboy Texas

LITTERED LANDSCAPES

Opportunisitic prickly pear

Prickly pear. Agave. Mountain cedar.

Patches of mesquite and the occasional crown of thorns.

Each sightly at times,

Picturesque, naturalistic.

But often, in the Texas Hill Country,

A sign of something else –

Man’s scarring of the soil,

Littered landscapes.

Opportunistic plants from dryland edges

Found their chance to invade

Overgrazed pasturelands, stony hills and cloudy draws.

When you eat that Texas beef on your plate,

The fuzzy-edged, grasping and extending fingers

Of the Chihuahuan Desert,

And its semidesert outliers,

Thank you.

When you admire an “authentic” Hill Country mock ranch

For artifice from drier lands

The desert flora thank you.

Yes, a few of the specimens were in place

Before Texas cattlemen, or “Old West” realtors

But not like this.

Beauty is in the eye – and the knowledge – of the beholder.

            Jan. 7, 2012