The bells this cowboy's hearin',
     aren't off of any sleigh.
They're 'round the necks of the old milk cows
     comin' in for their mornin' hay.

There've been other times and places,
     where there weren't snowflakes fallin',
But he can't remember a Christmas,
     when there weren't cattle bawlin'.

The desert air is chilled,
     as daylight tints the sky.
It's plenty cold enough for frost
     but the air is just too dry.

Against the graying pre-dawn
     there's a darker silhouette.
A remuda horse has just come in,
     but he can't tell which one yet.

The faint scent of creosote brush
     drifts on the mornin' breeze,
And prob'ly because of the day
     makes him think of Christmas trees.

Pausing, he watches the sunrise
     break the hold of the night.
Objects begin to emerge from the dark
     changing form in the light.

Saguaro, arms reaching skyward,
     cottonwood trees, bare limbed.
A rooster up on the big corral fence
     sittin' there crowin' at him.

An old cow begins to bawl,
     knowin' it's time for feed.
He breaks the bales and scatters the hay,
     and the others follow her lead.

Cattle and man have a bond,
     they've always been his life.
Over the years they've taken the place
     of a family and a wife.

As seasons follow seasons,
     he's never changed direction.
Horses, cattle, and wide-open spaces,
     the "cowboy connection."

 "Merry Christmas, Girls," he calls,
     "here's a little extra hay.
An old cowboy likes to do his part
     to make this a special day!"

His Christmas seldom means presents,
     or bright lights on a tree,
More a time to pause and reflect
     on the way a man ought to be.

Some folks don't understand this,
     but it really isn't so strange.
It's what a cowboy's life's all about,
     to a shepherd of the range

© Carole Jarvis

                  You can purchase the book  directly from Carole Jarvis,
43909 West Highway 60 Wickenburg, Arizona 85390;
or from the publisher, Cowboy Miner Productions.
           
      Carole and her husband, Dan Jarvis, are a cowboy couple who live in Forepaugh, Arizona, near Wickenburg where they run a few cows on their desert ranch. Both Carole and Dan both write and recite cowboy poetry for gatherings.  Carole grew up on the edge of Anaheim, California in a time when the orange groves and farm fields were still there. Gone are the orange groves and fields she rode through on horseback:The area is now the site of Disneyland, and only her memories remain.  Later on, she lived on a ranch in California's Mohave Desert. She has always been cowboy and western in heart and spirit. She knew from early childhood that; a western ranch life was what she wanted. And she got it!

       She worked for several summers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Following are her words about what happened he second summer she was there: "[I] met a handsome cowboy who actually came riding by the cabin where I was living, on a gorgeous coal black filly.  I've been teased about whether I was smitten by the filly or the cowboy first!  Well, whichever it was, the cowboy is the one that's still around, after over forty years."

     Carole and Dan Jarvis have lived and cowboyed in Wyoming, Oregon and Arizona. She says: [...There have been] a lot of hard work, dusty trails, blisters, sunburns and broken bones along the way, but it's the life I chose and the one Dan, my husband chose, and we wouldn't trade it for any other". 
 

    
    She is the recipient of the 2001 Gail I. Gardner Award for a Working Cowboy Poet, bestowed at the Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering at Prescott, Arizona and of the 2003 Western Heritage Award, bestowed at the 15th Annual Cowboy Christmas Poetry Gathering in Wickenburg, Arizona.