Though adrenaline rush brought us bullridin' thrills,
The little we won hardly paid doctor's bills.

I'd had breaks and concussions and some so severe,
Even now I have spells when my mind's not so clear.

Jimmy broke jaw and ribs and had back surgery.
I'd have to guess Jimmy'd been hurt worse'n me.

But we kept on a ridin'; we just couldn't stop.
We almost believed we'd come out on top.

"You betcha," we'd say.  That expression proved true.
Turned out we bet lives, and a payment came due.

We'd no sense of death lurkin' the night Jimmy died,
His chest crushed by the bull he'd been tryin' to ride.

Grandstanders who'd cheered only moments before,
Now sat in stunned silence, both sick and heartsore.

I knew in the moments that followed the hush
That at age twenty-one I was done with the rush.

Jimmy's buried in Texas, a long ways from here,
When I think of him now,I can't hold back a tear.

Is adrenaline rush ever worth such a cost?
No, not when you're grievin' a person you've lost.

What bothers me most about the whole tragedy--
I held our two tickets.  He drew his from me.


 

 Jane Morton's poems and stories are connected to her family and the ranch they've owned near Fort Morgan, Colorado since l9l5.  During that time it grew from a 320-acre beet farm to a l4,000 acre cow/calf operation.  After she married she taught school and published ten children's books.  All those years she and her husband were involved in the ranch and ranch activities--branding, roundups, and cattle sales.  Her dad had one man on the payroll.  Otherwise the family did it all.

   She is the author of ten published children's books and in recent years has been writing about the ranch as she knew it and performing at cowboy poetry gatherings throughout the West.   For three times in  a row she was nominated by the Academy of Western Artists as the female poet of the year.  

         Her new book, "COWBOY POETRY, Turning To Face The Wind", was published by Cowboy Minor Publications. It won the 2004 Will Rogers Medallion Award from the Academy of  Western Artists, the Glyph award from the Arizona Booksellers, a WILLA finalist award for poetry from Women Writing The West , and the Fred Olds award from Westerners International. She was one of fifty performers invited to perform as a Featured Poet at Elko, Nevada in January 2005.

  Her poem, "Branding", is included in The Big Roundup , an anthology.  Jane Morton's  poems have appeared in, "The Fence Post", "Wyoming Companion", "Colorado Country Life", and "Cowboy Magazine". Her poem "Seein' Santa" is featured on "Charlie Russell's Stagecoach" http://www.charlierussell.org/seeinsantjmorton.htm .  She was named Poet Lariat Laureate on http://www.cowboypoetry.com

   Jane and her husband, Dick, live in Black Forest, Colorado in the summer and in Mesa, Arizona in the winter. 
                                                                                                                                                        
                                                   You can contact Jane by email.
 

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