Anarchic badlands spread without a road,
And from the river west no turned-up loam;
No farmer prayed for rain, no settler’s horse
But one time blundered riderless to home.

Unfriendly birds would gather in the air,
A circling kind of tombstone. As for the law,
No marshal lived for long unless he could
Defeat his mirror’d image to the draw.

So now he rode upon a silver horse.
He stood for law and order. Anarchy
Like flood or fire roared through every gate
But he and Tonto hid behind a tree

And when the bandits met to split the loot,
He blocked the door. With silver guns he shot
The quick six-shooters from their snatching hands
And took them off to jail and let them rot.

For him the badlands were his mother’s face.
He made an order where all order lacked
From Hanged Boy Junction to the Rio Grande.
Why did he wear a mask? He was abstract.