I want free life and I want fresh air;
And I sigh for the canter after the cattle
The crack of the whips like shots in battle,
The medley of horns and hoofs and heads
That wars and wrangles and scatters and spreads;
The green beneath and the blue above,
And dash and danger, and life and love.

And Lasca! Lasca used to ride
On a mouse-gray mustang close to my side,
With blue serape and bright-belled spur;
I laughed with joy as I looked at her!
Little knew she of books or creeds;
An Ave Maria sufficed her needs;
Little she cared, save to be by my side,
To ride with me, and ever to ride,
From San Saba’s shore to Lavaca’s tide.
She was bold as the billows that beat,
She was wild as the breezes that blow;
From her little head to her little feet
She was swayed in her suppleness to and fro
By each gust of passion; a sapling pine,
That grows on the edge of a Kansas bluff,
And wars with the wind when the weather is rough,
Is like this Lasca, this love of mine.
She would hunger that I might eat,
Would take the bitter and leave me the sweet;
But once when I made her jealous for fun,
At something I’d whispered, or looked, or done,
One Sunday, in San Antonio,
To a glorious girl on the Alomo,
She drew from her garter a dear little dagger,
And- sting of a wasp!- it made me stagger!
An inch to the left, or an inch to the right,
And I shouldn’t be maundering here tonight;
But she sobbed, and sobbing, so swiftly bound
Her torn reboso about the wound.
That I quite forgave her. Scratches don’t count
                     In Texas, down by the Rio Grande.

Her eye was brown- a deep brown;
Her hair was darker than her eye;
And something in her smile and frown,
Curled crimson lip and instep high,
Showed that there ran in each blue vein,
Mixed with the milder Aztec strain,
The vigorous vintage of Old Spain
She was alive in every limb
With feeling, to the finger tips;
And when the sun is like fire,
And sky one shinning, soft sapphire,
One does not drink in little sips.

The air was heavy, the night was hot,
I sat by her side, and forgot- forgot;
Forgot the herd that were taking their rest,
Forgot that the air was close opprest,
That the Texas norther comes sudden and soon,
In the dead of night or the blaze of noon;
That once let the hers at its breath take fright,
Nothing on earth can stop the flight;
And woe to the rider, and woe to the steed,
Who falls in front of their mad stampede!

Was that thunder? I grasped the cord
Of my swift mustang without a word.
I sprang to the saddle, and she clung behind.
Away! On a hot chase down the wind!
But never was fox hunt half so hard,
And never was steed so little spared.
For we rode for our lives. You shall see how we fared.
                     In Texas down by the Rio Grande.

The mustang flew, and we urged him on:
There was one chance left, and you have but one;
Halt, jump to the ground, and shoot your horse;
Crouch under his carcass, and take your chance;
And, if the steers in their frantic course
Don’t batter you both to pieces at once,
You may thank your star; if not; good-bye
To the quickening kiss and the long-drawn sigh,
And the open air and the open sky,
                     In Texas, down by the Rio Grande!

The cattle gained on us, and, just as I felt
For my old six-shooter behind my belt,
Down came the mustang, and down came we,
Clinging together, and- what was the rest-
A body that spread itself on my breast.
Two arms that shielded my dizzy head,
Two lips that hard on my lips were prest;
Then came thunder in my ears,
As over us surged the sea of steers,
Blows that beat blood into my eyes,
And when I could rise-
Lasca was dead!

I gouged out a grave a few feet deep,
And there in earth’s arms I laid her to sleep;
And there she is lying, and no one knows,
And the summer shines and the winter snows;
For many a day the flowers have spread
A pall of petals over her head;
And the little gray hawk hangs aloft in the air,
And the sly coyote trots here and there,
And the black snake glides and glitters and slides
Into a rift in a cottonwood tree;
And the buzzard sails on,
And comes and is gone,
Stately and still like a ship at sea;
And I wonder why I do not care
For the things that are like the things that were.
Does half my heart lie buried there
                     In Texas, Down by the Rio Grande?
                                                Frank Desprez

 Photos and writing by Doug Grinberg

Greetings, As many Louisville/Lafayette residents probably know by now, Louisville's well-known and much-beloved bicyclist and recycler, John Breaux, was killed in a freak accident on Friday afternoon while he was picking up along US287 in Lafayette. (:-( In case you don't *think* you know him, John was the scruffy-looking fellow with the dark hair and beard, with bags of trash and recyclables hanging from the handlebars. (He received a mayoral proclamation in March 2005 for his work.) John was an institution, seen regularly at places like Chipotle, Starbucks, Albertson's, Safeway, Dairy Queen, Diamond Shamrock. John was *everywhere*, it might have seemed; some have joked about *how many* John Breauxs there were.



















































It may be harder to find people who *didn't* know John,
than those who did.
Peace.
Remembering John Breaux - pictures of John & various memorial events:







Media vans and antennas at Saturday evening memorial for John Breaux, Lafayette, CO. USA
Photos by Doug Grinberg

Jack Hadley


The Bollinger's


Rex Peoples and X Factor


Cec Girz and Army Armstrong