We’d made a wild and hard old run
A thousand miles or more
And I’m sittin’ high in the average
With just one pony more
On his withers sat my riggin’
Just where it ought to set
And I got a go out of the box
As good as you could get
Reversing in his crankin’ back
He’s kicking high and wild
And I just sit there hookin’
‘Till the judges have to smile
And when the whistle blasted
With its loud and welcome call
I’m reared back on my riggin’
And he hasn’t slowed at all
Then walking back towards the chutes
I hear the words I hate –
The judges’ words of “Sorry, boy,
I got you at the gate.”
Goose Egg was excerpted from The Silent Partner (& Other Cowboy Poetry) written in 1967 by the late cowboy poet, Bud McKague of Peachland, B.C. The note with the poem says: “Ellie Lewis got so busy bossin’ the chutes for Joe Kelsey at Vancouver, Washington one year that he forgot to put his spurs on before takin’ his bare-back. That’s what inspired this one, and guess what! This cheered him up some.”