OVERTURE I

Three blocks South, the tires of midnight trucks

Buzz on the concrete strip of Highway 3,

And, through the hemlocks, dark against the fence,

Their headlamps graze the darkness of the lawn.

The whitest peonies are ghosts, and, overhead,

The sycamore weaves gently with the stars.

Shrouded in this scene, lack all moral sense.

Therefore, The Cowboy rises, mounted, from his grave,

The rosebed heaves and, suddenly, spews up

Skeletons: Poet, Soldier, Sailor, Bigamist.

And then, The Cowboy's gunfire rakes the drying shrubs

And kills the cricket's high-pitched music there.

I hail The Cowboy, try calling him by name:

"Cowboy, dismount!" and, swaggering he comes—Spurs

clanking as he strides the terrace stones

And, in the lawn chair next to mine, sits down.