Several years ago I became interested in the story of a horse of which I have been trying to write my version. Numerous times I've written it and once even performed a version at the poetry gathering in Medora. The last re-write came about this past spring when in a poetry class I came up with the following version. Fellow class members liked it, or said they did, and one, Sheila Schafer, even purchased a hard-cover biography of Tipperary's story at the Western Edge store in Medora and gave it to me. How I came to be interested in the story will be told in another blog.
Tipperary by Lynn D. Bueling
When I was young Frenchmen came
buying herds of thousands of horses
like me to ship to their battlefields
and haul their cannons and wagons
through the mud and the bodies
of men fallen in the conflict.
They rejected me, my spirit too great
to be tamed for their use, but then my owner
thought that if I couldn't be ridden
my destiny lie in the rodeo arena.
With so many grimy hands holding
money wagered I earned repute
as the wild horse that couldn't be ridden.
The years passed and a couple did succeed,
once when I limped with my ankle injured.
My fury became hidden delight
when I threw the riders into the dirt,
even better yet when the ground was mud.
But I grew old, pain and stiffness settled
into my limbs, a ruined gladiator. To show
me off one last time, they paraded me
in Belle Fourche in front of a bandstand
while a band played my namesake "Tipperary."
I entered shaggy, sagging, mindless
of the spectators disappointed with my sad
appearance. But... that tune sent sparks
shooting through my veins, I threw
up my head, and stepped to the time
set by its measures, and I heard applause
again like old times past. The memory
lingered awhile after the music stopped,
but then I dropped my head and walked
away to face the storm.
Finally set free on a northern prairie
I wandered forgotten and stumbled
in drifts that came with the winter winds.
I died frozen, alone, with the wind howling
like the starved coyotes that gathered
to tear at my flanks. They found me
in the spring, my bones picked clean,
shining, white.
