A Cowboy's Prayer
(written for Mother)
Badger Clark
Sun and Saddle Leather
Badger Clark Memorial Society
© 1993
Oh Lord, I've never lived where churches grow.
I loved
creation better as it stood
That day You finished it so long ago
And looked
upon Your work and called it good.
I know that others find You in the
light
That's sifted
down through tinted window panes,
And yet I seem to feel You near
tonight
In this dim,
quiet starlight on the plains.
I thank You, Lord, that I am placed
so well,
That You have
made my freedom so complete;
That I'm no slave of whistle, clock
or bell,
Nor weak-eyed
prisoner of wall and street,
Just let me live my life as I've
begun
And give me
work that's open to the sky;
Make me a pardner of the wind and
sun,
And I won't
ask a life that's soft or high.
Let me be easy on the man that's
down;
Let me be
square and generous with all.
I'm careless sometimes, Lord, when
I'm in town,
But never let
'em say I'm mean or small!
Make me as big and open as the
plains,
As honest as
the hawse between my knees,
Clean as the wind that blows behind
the rains,
Free as the
hawk that circles down the breeze!
Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I
forget.
You know
about the reasons that are hid.
You understand the things that gall
and fret;
You know me
better than my mother did.
Just keep an eye on all that's done
and said
And right me,
sometimes, when I turn aside,
And guide me down the long, dim trail
ahead
That
stretches upward toward the Great Divide.
