(Written for Mother)

Oh Lord, I've never lived where churches
       grow.
   I love creation better as it stood
That day You finished it so long ago
   And looked upon Your work and called it
        good.
I know that others find You in the light
   That's sifted down through tinted window
       panes,
And yet I seem to feel You near tonight
   In this dim, quiet starlight on the plains.

I thank You, Lord, that I am placed so well,
   That You have made my freedom so com-
       plete;
That I'm no slave of whistle, clock or bell,
   Nor weak-eyed prisoner of wall and street.
Just let me live my life as I've begun
   And give me work that's open to the sky;
Make me a pardner of the wind and sun,
   And I won't ask a life that's soft or high.

Let me be easy on the man that's down;
   Let me be square and generous with all.
I'm careless sometimes, Lord, when I'm in
       town,
   But never let 'em say I'm mean or small!
Make me as big and open as the plains,
   As honest as the hawse between my knees,
Clean as the wind that blows behind the rains,
   Free as the hawk that circles down the
       breeze!

Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I forget.
   You know about the reasons that are hid.
You understand the things that gall and fret;
   You know me better than my mother did.
Just keep an eye on all that's done and said
   And right me, sometimes, when I turn
       aside,
And guide me on the long, dim, trail ahead
   That stretches upward toward the Great
       Divide.

Winner of the 2025 Wrangler Award for Outstanding Juvenile Book, presented by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
Finalist for the 2026 Spur Award for Best Western Children's Picture Book

Badger Clark (1883–1957), South Dakota’s first poet laureate, is best known for his “A Cowboy’s Prayer,” erroneously attributed to “Anonymous” and a mainstay at rodeos across the United States. After spending much of his childhood in Deadwood, South Dakota, Badger escaped a harrowing experience in Cuba and then found his vocation as a cowboy and a poet in Arizona.

Author Nancy Bo Flood describes Badger’s poetry as “Shakespeare meets Walt Whitman during a cattle drive.” He had a way of expressing that smooth, rolling, clip-clop rhythm of horse and rider, and his legacy as a bard of the American West endures. For over one hundred years, Badger Clark’s poems have been sung and celebrated at poetry gatherings, rodeos, and many a cowboy’s final farewell. His plain and simple verses spoke of his love for the land and a deep appreciation for a life lived close to nature. Badger Clark: Poetry Wrangler tells the story of this iconic Western writer and celebrates his enduring poetry.