Old MITCH

 Old car, old hat and old Mitch

       with his saddle and bedroll in the trunk.

I remember, and smile.

Mitch catching the sun,

      sitting on a bench at the Baca House Museum,

      his shadow a portrait on the adobe wall.

Talking to tourists, educating each.

The old Baca place was saved.

Mitch had done it.

It was really his museum.

The state of Colorado got the sign.

Mitch got the bench.

But he was an artist at heart -

        a cowboy artist.

His paintings were

       on the cover of the Western magazines.

Blazing six guns and tall lanky men.

Covered wagons moving along the Johnson Mesa.

A wild horse viewing his domain.

A helpless Eastern girl

       saved by a real hero,

      and a cowboy roping a horse.

Mitch painted western legends

       and he loved his West. 

Most of all Mitch knew horses.

Every muscle

       and posture he captured on canvas.

He made sure we would know

      the look of a  horse.

The old '35 Ford would head away from campus.

He left with Fisher's Peak

       on his left and the sun in his eyes.

Mitch headed up river

      to the valley boxed by stone walls,

      where the grass was deep

      and trout small and fast.

Here was the home of the cowboy.

He loved it so much

      he captured it on canvas. 

Oh, yes!  Mitch  was a cowboy all right.

I can still see the cock of his head;

       hear his voice

       on afternoons in the sun.

But his friends and family fixed him good.

They built a museum of western art

       and named it "Mitch."

Many friends with him now on the other side

       will see the irony.

Too much museum for a modest man.

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