In winter they paw for it in the snow;
They do not stand and whinny for sugar.
Momentarily untroubled by gnats, dozing in Eastern Oregon.
Some sleep on their feet. Others are listening . . . watching.
Some lift scraggy manes and watch a shadowy coyote.
They are an unlovely lot who greet the sun in gray wastes.
They are survivors of Conquistadore herds;
Poor relations to the Clydesdale-Percheron aristocracy—
An untamed, unroached, tick-ridden herd.
At night they nod under the nearby stars, subject
To similar cosmic draughts and silences.
27
OTHER PROMINENT WRITERS OF VERSE
Mrs. Harriet Markham Gill was born at Prineville. Her father, a Southerner, operated a horse ranch rather than a cattle ranch on Crooked River. She was educated at The Dalles and spent many years in Eastern Oregon, but now lives near Vancouver, Washington. She is the author of Highways of Oregon, 1932.
Mrs. Frances Holstrom is an Oregon housewife who lived for several years on a farm in Coos County. She is now a resident of Coquille. Her poetry has won wide recognition and has appeared in the American Mercury, Forum and other national magazines.
Gertrude Robison Ross, a Salem poet, was a promising writer of verse about a decade ago, but in recent years she has stopped writing. Her work was published in such magazines as the Nation and Good Housekeeping, and one of her poems, "I Was Made for This and That", was included in Strong's Oxford Anthology, and Braithwaite's Anthology for 1923.
Margaret Skavlan, of Eugene, is a graduate of the school of journalism of the University of Oregon. She was a reporter on the Eugene Guard and later for a few years on the Oregonian. Her verse, published in several magazines, was gaining considerable recognition when about two years ago her newspaper work and her writing were interrupted by an illness which has since continued.
