Poetry Friday: A Poetry Postcard from Katherine Fall Pettey

Greetings from vacation land! Having lots of fun. Wish you were here.

Andy

P.S. Once again, I'm in vacation mode and sending off a funkily spaced post. Sorry for not being able to break up your stanzas, Katherine.

Morning on the Desert
by Katherine Fall Pettey, from Songs of the Sage Brush, 1910

Morning on the desert, and the wind is blowin' free,
And it's ours jest for the breathin', so let's fill up, you an' me.

No more stuffy cities where you have to pay to breathe—

Where the helpless, human creatures, throng, and move, and strive and seethe.

Morning on the desert, an' the air is like a wine;

And it seems like all creation has been made for me an' mine.

No house to stop my vision save a neighbor's miles away,

An' the little 'dobe casa that berlongs to me an' May.

Lonesome? Not a minute: Why I've got these mountains here;

That was put there jest to please me with their blush an' frown an' cheer.

They're waitin' when the summer sun gets too sizzlin' hot—

An' we jest go campin' in 'em with a pan an' coffee pot.
Morning on the desert! I can smell the sagebrush smoke;

An' I hate to see it burnin', but the land must sure be broke.

Ain't it jest a pity that wherever man may live,

He tears up much that's beautiful, that the good God has to give?
"Sagebrush ain't so pretty?" Well, all eyes don't see the same;

Have you ever saw the moonlight turn it to a silv'ry flame?

An' that greasewood thicket yonder—well, it smells jest awful sweet

When the night wind has been shakin' it; for smells it's hard to beat.

Lonesome? well, I guess not! I've been lonesome in a town.

But I sure do love the desert with its stretches wide and brown;

All day through the sagebrush here, the wind is blowin' free.

An' it's ours jest for the breathin', so let's fill up, you and me.

Mosey on over to Laura's place at Author Amok for a gander at this week's Poetry Friday. Happy trails, Cowboys and Cowgirls!