Poem of the Week
November 17, 2003
Badger Clark is a South Dakota poet from the first half of the 20th century. He was the state's first Poet Laureate. With Thanksgiving just a week away, this is probably a good time for a poem about eating.
You're salty and greasy and smoky as sin
But of all grub we love you the best.
You stuck to us closer than the nighest of kin
And helped us win out in the West.
You froze with us up on the Laramie trail;
You sweat with us down at Tucson;
When Injun was painted and white man was pale
You nerved us to grip our last chance by the tail
And load up our Colts and hang on.
You've sizzled by mountain and mesa and plain
Over campfires of sagebrush and oak;
The breezes that blow from the Platte to the main
Have carried your savory smoke.
You're friendly to miner or puncher or priest;
You're as good in December as May;
And the rough course of empire to westward was
greased
By the bacon we fried on the way.
We've said that you weren't fit for white men to eat
and your virtues we often forget.
We've called you by names that I darsn't repeat,
But we love you and swear by you yet.
Here's to you, old bacon, fat, lean streak and rin',
All the westerners join in the toast,
From mesquite and yucca to sagebrush and pine,
From Canada down to the Mexican Line,
From Omaha out to the coast!
-- Badger Clark