Land For Sale by Owner

The weathered sign read, “Land for sale by Owner.”
He leaned by the gate, this figure older.
I stopped to inquire, my mind was curious,
About memories being left behind.

In the wild county, the land lay wide and grand,
A stretch of earth beneath the sky’s command.
By owner sold, a Mexican cowboy’s pride,
He offered cheap, I never took the ride.

His face lined with stories, eyes a deep, dark brown,
He tipped his hat with the sun going down.
“Buenas tardes, Vaquero,” I said with a nod,
We spoke of days, cattle drives, life he trod.

The sagebrush whispered its secrets of the past,
Of miners’ dreams and cowboy shadows cast.
I wonder now, had I gone down that dirt road,
What stories would have unfolded, seeds sown?

The seven rivers wind through the valleys deep,
A silent witness to the life they keep.
The vaqueros’ eyes dim as a nighttime sky,
Tales of old, dreams, reality, lies.

“I’m selling my spread,” his voice a quiet breeze,
“Land worked many years, among sage and trees.”
“Why sell, mi amigo, this place called your own?”
I asked him as I toed a random stone.

He spoke of sunsets and painting mountains gold,
Of nights so clear, stars a sight to behold.
His voice was soft like a distant lullaby,
But I never went, now I question why.

For sale, that sage land where history got made,
Where pioneers and legends never fade.
I passed it by, caught in life’s swift-flowing stream,
Now I sit, lost, lost in a distant dream.

“My hands tired, mi amigo, bones feeling old,
The days riding hard done, my stories told.
This land needs younger hands, someone dreams anew,
To tend vacas beneath the skies so blue.”

The nights are clear, and the stars a diamond blaze,
The moonlight casts a spell, a silver haze.
I think of him, that cowboy, and that saged land,
And how I let it slip right through my hand.

Had I just turned down that old dusty dirt road,
Would I have found peace, my hearth, and a home?
The open country where wild horses run free,
I see the life missed, the man I could be.

And now I sit, with my heart in bittersweet,
In the shadows of a past, incomplete.
The Vaqueros offer is my haunting song,
While I contemplate where I went so wrong.