Eulogy to an Abandoned Graveyard

By Fredrick A. Olds

 


Overgrown with prairie grass
Cactus flower or two
Here's a headstone you can't read
Makes you wonder who?

Just bones in a rotting blanket
Killed on a night stampede
Too slow on the draw
By some outlaw
With a gun he didn't need

This stone says something different
No doubt what it's about
The feller got killed in a crap game
Sez that "Casey crapped out."

Maybe this feller stole horses or cattle
And got caught with the goods you could see
The posse held court to consider
He got hanged from a tall cottonwood tree.

A girl with a rose tattoo lies under this rock
Working her trade at the Blue Bell
Sickened and died with the pox.

These headstones to some casual observer
Could cause him to look and scoff,
But only this lonely old graveyard knows
"Did he die with his boots on or off?"