The Outlaw and the Bronco

Bucking Bronco, 1903 (Oil on Canvas), by Newell Convers Wyeth

In the desert

The outlaw walked

With an aimless determination

Looking to escape the hellish sand

Thirsty and on the cusp

Of death

And in the distance

The bronco galloped

With a burning will

And a dangerous freedom

That was carefully toiled

By the hands

Of Mother Earth

The outlaw turned his eye

And approached

With caution and with stride

Rope in hand

Lassoed and twirling

Ready to strike

This was not the first time

The outlaw and the bronco

Had met

It had been a long winded dance

And the bronco remained untamed

Taunting the outlaw

Across the wasteland plains

In a cursed and

Torturous mock

Yet it felt different this time

The outlaw told himself

As he crept closer to the beast

He was grizzled now

Scruff of neck

Battle scarred and

Beaten

From previous attempts

At ill-fated domestication

The outlaw understood now

That the bronco could not be conquered

With force

But instead accepted

For the wild that it was

With a cosmic understanding

And a symbiotic love

Only found

In the astral

So with newfound mentality

The outlaw whipped his rope

Over the bronco's chestnut neck

And wrestled his way

On top once more

The bronco bucked and neighed

With anger and fear

And a righteous power

Conjured by the souls

Of a thousand generations

But the outlaw's touch

Felt different this time

To the bronco

As their pulses interwove

And their spirits intertwined

And the bronco could tell

There was a battered peace

In the outlaw now

A celestial perception

Unknown

Until that very moment

And so the bronco steadied

Muting its breath and kick

And the outlaw pet the bronco's mane

Easing both their minds

If only for a moment

And all at once

- ZB James