ALISON LIVES BY THE BIG BEND
Nathan Tinkham
Rhythm Range Music SOCAN
Alison lives by the Big Bend, far from the ocean she knows,
She'll spend all day just fighting the heat, then the next morning
it snows.
She left her home on the west coast, to follow a cowboy out there.
Twenty years later, she's living alone, with no-one to watch,
or to care.
The lines on her face have grown deeper, her fingers all blunted
from toil.
Such is the ravage that comes from living close to the dry desert
soil.
Just as the morning is stealing, in her hat and her old working
clothes,
She rides out to the cattle, living this life that she chose
Where horses run wild, and cattle wear horns,
And everything else, is covered with thorns.
Back when the cholla was blooming, I stopped in just to see
How my old friend was doing, and what made her so different from
me
Ghosts of bandits and rangers ride through the hills all around
The sun and the wind and the years still haven't covered the blood
on the ground
This ain't no place for a woman, the country's too hard so they
say
But Alison never would listen to that kind of talk anyway
Where horses run wild, and cattle wear horns
And everything else is covered with thorns
I thought of the last time I saw her, sitting so quiet and
near
She closed her eyes as she listened to something that I couldn't
hear