West Gone

Go west
Young man
He said
But he didn’t mean it
In that he didn’t go

And in heaven
He’ll say
I wasn’t young
To which the angels
Might reply

Did you think of all the souls
Already west
Living
Hunting
Worshipping the land and sky

And he might say
I knew that
They were there
But had all these people in the east
Needing somewhere to go

The war
The horrors of the restless war
And then
The burdens in the restless peace
Thereafter

Not enough
He might be told
But enter heaven
Anyway
Where we’ll have a job for you

C L Couch


(Horace Greeley may not have been the first saying it, though he said it famously in July of 1865)

Photo by Chor Tsang on Unsplash 
The Old West
[before it was new]