Cowboy sitting in front of BT Ranch building
Thomas Eakins
(This is not Plate 134, but it was the best I could find on Google!)
PLATE 134. BY EAKINS. "A COWBOY IN
THE WEST. AN UNIDENTIFIED MAN
AT THE BADGER COMPANY RANCH."
His hat, his gun, his gloves, his chair, his place
In the sun. He sits with his feet in a dried-up pool
Of sunlight. His face is the face of a hero
Who has read nothing at all, about heroes.
He is without splendor, utterly without
The amazement of self that glorifies Achilles
The sunlike, the killer. He is without mercy
As he is without the imagination that he is
Without mercy. There is nothing to the East of him
Except the camera, which is almost entirely without
Understanding of what it sees in him.
His hat, his gun, his gloves, his homely and
Heartbreaking canteen, empty on the ground.
David Ferry (b. 1924)
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