Around the evening campfire stories were told
of honorable men and women of old

tough folks who rode horses, roped cows and roamed free
who sang trail songs, ate beans and drank cowboy coffee

whose philosophy was not complaining of expectations not met
but rather “You pretty much take what you get”

But real life is just more complex than riding the range
and it’s a pipe dream to imagine such simple exchange.

Yet some of us still imagine the myth of those good ol’ times
when cowboys yodeled, square danced and made beautiful rhymes.