A Chuckwagon Memory 

(Or Impressions of a Chuckwagon Cookoff)

As the end of a perfect day is closed by the setting sun,
High above in the darkening blue sky,
A silvery sliver of the crescent moon sees
An orange glow make distinct the distant dark horizon.

Birds twitter and flitter in the evening's shadowy trees,
And a tired, tiny babe makes a distant muffled cry.
Drifting smells of campfire smoke and new mown hay
Mingle with cowboy poetry on the easy breeze,
And shadows on the ground begin to play.

Dusty boots crunch heavily on the road's gray gravel
As homeward nostalgic folks begin their travel.
Cook off crews extinguish their campfires and begin to clear
Their campsites of the old-time wagons brought from yesteryear.

Chink, chink – two hammers pound loose the tent stakes gray,
And slowly canvas tents begin to lower and sway
While on the ground more dusky shadows begin to play.

"It's over!" one tired leader in relief says to another.
"I had a lot of fun," responds her weekend brother.
"Be safe goin' home," one cowboy advises his friends just made.
"Hope to see y'all here ag'in next year," echoes throughout the glade.

As the ninth cook-off relives the events of a hundred years or more
When Chuckwagons and campfires made the "Golden Days" of yore,
The evening's peaceful sounds close an awesome return in time
To the days of Charles Goodnight and Clarendon's upward climb.

© Helen Estlack, September, 2003