Cowboy Christmas Poem

BETHLEHEM PINE, a cowboy Christmas poem by Stephen Bly

I was camped out in the Dakota snow

When Christmas Eve rolled around.

Me and Slim and a dog named Flop,

Three days ride from town.

Not a tree in sight for thirty miles,

As we huddled in the draw.

The chips ran out the day before;

We was burnin’ twisted straw.

Oh, it was cold, I’m here to say

And gettin’ kind of scary

As we hunkered down in our bedrolls

on that deserted, lonely prairie.

Slim was convinced we’d never live

to see the light of day.

He shook my hand, scratched Flop’s ear,

and then commenced to pray.

I have to admit it got to me

and I was feelin’ mighty low.

A frozen corpse out on the sage

ain’t the way I wanted to go.

So I joined with Slim in divine entreat

with a serious prayer or two.

“Lord, we don’t need all that much

… jist a small miracle will do.”

Lookin’ For A Miracle

The dry snow was a blowin’ sideways

when we first heard that sound:

A stutterin’ trot and a scratchin’ noise,

somethin’ drug on frozen ground.

The dark outline of a long-eared mule,

who smelled our puny flame,

came draggin’ somethin’ across the snow

and actin’ hugely lame.

We scrambled out in the frigid storm

to inspect what we could not see

And found a mule badly bleedin’,

still chained to an evergreen tree.

Slim twitched his ear, I pulled the shackle,

while the mule continued to croon

With salve and a half clean flour sack

we doctored that fetlock wound.

It was a twelve foot pine he chewed in two,

trying’ to set himself free.

I was thinkin’ the Lord answered our prayers

and sent us cowboys a Christmas tree.

A Mule Named Star

“The mule came from somewhere,”

Slim decreed, with hope upon his brow.

“Unhobbled he’ll know his way back home

and lead us there somehow.”

We called him Star, it seemed to fit.

He steered us to the stable.

We didn’t leave ‘til daylight, though,

it was as soon as the mule was able.

The tree we branded Bethlehem Pine

and it burnt up hot and slow.

It gave its life that we might live,

like the Savior so long ago.

You kin have your symbols of Christmas

with parties and presents at ever’ turn.

Jist give me a mule who knows his way home,

and a cowboy Christmas tree that’ll burn.

Stephen Bly

Copyright©2000

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the Cowboys Come to Town

— This cowboy Christmas poem can be found in When The Cowboys Come To Town cowboy poetry hanging booklet by Stephen Bly  COWBOY POETRY BOOK & CDs

Hard Winter At Broken Arrow Crossing

— For a cowboy Christmas novel story, check out Hard Winter At Broken Arrow Crossing, Book 1, The Stuart Brannon Series, to be found on this page: HARD WINTER AT BROKEN ARROW CROSSING 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~