Ranch Hands

It’s an overwhelming air of loneliness
That encompasses those of us who
Stop to look toward the horizon
At dusk, thinking “This isn’t me…”
Hurrying to finish the fencing
In the harried half-light
Of evening. That must be

Someone else with a pail of staples
Gripped tightly in her hand
Trudging along the line fence
Of the pasture, thinking,
“This can’t be me…” solely responsible
For revamping this ramshackle piece
Of boundary fenceline. At the deepest
Moment of the day, wishing

That I were someplace else, wishing
I were anywhere else; but I’m a rancher
Looking out at herself from afar,
Hopping into the old ranch pickup,
Starting it up and climbing the steep hill
Listening to the tires grabbing
For real estate, the engine laboring

Disrupting the endless silence
Which seems ominously empty
And strange; then suddenly thinking
With a new wave of aloneness
“This really shouldn’t be me…” sitting in this
Pickup feeling as if I were miles from civilization,
In the center of God’s Country. This must be

Someone else driving around in these hills
Surrounded by miles of grassy knolls
With only wildlife to share the deepening
Dusk, searching to find the trail while
Steering herself home and trying
Not to fret

In the last moments of nightfall
As the red lights on the tower wink
Knowingly, farmsteads light up in the
Valley and the sky fills with stars.
Linda S Cone 4–29-2009