The Edge
“It will be a Long-day”,
you would say, as you checked the chinch,
and with that I would know
not to expect you,
until darkness had begun.
Into the tall grass
you would ride.
And I, left here,
set the cabin straight,
and fed and watered and gathered eggs.
On the Long-days,
we lived in two worlds.
Yours, an open prairie covered in cattle.
Mine, a homestead covered in dust.
I often wondered
if the wind that so tormented me,
was the same wind
that you spoke of as magical.
I did not love this world then.
I loved only you.
And it was you,
and you alone,
who made it bearable.
On the Long-days,
knowing you would come back
tried, yet satisfied and pleased,
I wrote the letters to the family,
and lied about the love
I had for this place.
Then, you did not ride in.
They found the broken shell of you,
the horse dead too,
where you shot it to save it’s suffering.
Never mind, that you suffered also.
Family and friends tell me
that this place is too much for me alone.
But I cannot...and will not, leave.
This place owes me your spirit.
And I will wait here,
until it comes in the wind
and pushes the dust away.
Until it picks me up,
and dances me across the prairie,
and into your arms;
At the edge of the darkness
where you ride,
at the end
of a Long-day.
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