Wildflower Time

He was raised in the mountains, where he owned what he saw,

Born the son of a trapper and a Shoshone squaw,

He was proud of his dark eyes and he stood tall and fine,

And he rode down to Denver in a wildflower time,

All the young men in Denver wear those fine broadcloth suits,

And there’s old men in beaver, wearing soft hand tooled boots,

But they scramble for money, and they mill and they grind,

And their life is an autumn with no wildflower time,

She was daughter to riches and the belle of the town,

And she smiled for the young men as they followed her around,

And they say that her beauty could strike a man blind,

And he saw her in Denver in her wildflower time,

All the wildness in beauty met a mountain untamed,

And the tongue of their speaking has never been named,

She climbed to his saddle and he mounted behind,

And they road out of Denver in their wildflower time,

But a posse was mounted and it left the same day,

On the trail of the “half-breed” who had stolen her away,

‘Cause her Paw wanted ‘justice’, knowing justice is blind,

To the needs of the young folks in their wildflower time,

And the trail to the mountains was a honeymoon ride,

Running true as an arrow, made no effort to hide,

And the blood of a half-breed, it runs redder than wine,

When it spills for his true love in her wildflower time,

On the rich side of Denver stand the mansions in rows,

With their hedges and gardens where the tame flowers grow,

And the tall marble pillars, they’re so white that they shine,

Like the tops of the mountains in a wildflower time,

To a low hills near Denver where forget-me-nots grow,

Goes the wife of a banker, just to feel the wind blow,

And she waits through a sundown, ’til a million stars shine,

Like the eyes of a young man in his wildflower time.

Tim Henderson