Outhouse Poetry

I wanted to die in the desert,
I planned for it many a year;
Alone with my God and my conscience,
And not a sky-pilot near. 

Outhouse stands forth, southern Guano Valley, SE Oregon. Basin and range country.  Approaching the abandoned Barry Ranch with caution and respect. Rusted gates open, no signs. Swallows fly flinging from windows in the old ranch buildings.

Sheathed in galvanized tin, patched, shielded for generations from wind and dust, the occasional rain and snow. Detail below, a recycled section, collage-appearing.

The Barry Ranch, abandoned in the 1980s, was established in 1910 when M. P. J. Barry took title to this land. Barry was born in 1886 in Newmarket, County Cork, Ireland. He came to Lake County in 1906, was a prominent stockman of Lake County, a county with several Barry place names. 

 

I meant what I said when I said it,
For it threw a spell over me.
Its rimrocks, its sage, and its loneliness,
It was the place I wanted to be.

Wide-angle interior view of the two-seater outhouse. (Click to enlarge!) 
Three poems posted, covered in vinyl, on the walls... for an intimate reading, to self... or other.  
Far left, the poem I WANTED TO DIE IN THE DESERT (Revised). Author Unknown.

NOTES
Despite assiduous internet searchings, I have not a set been able to discover when or where this traditional poem I WANTED TO DIE IN THE DESERT may have been published. And what does "Revised" suggest?
Noting:  Don Edwards, a famous Cowboy singer, recorded a shorter, much-modified version as the song I WANTED TO DIE IN THE DESERT in the 1996 on his Last of the Troubadours: Saddle Songs II album.  That version can be heard on YouTube.

The two other poems tacked to the walls of the ranch outhouse are both by Charles Badger Clark (1883 - 1957), a famed cowboy poet and the first poet laureate of South Dakota (1937). That's a whole other story…

Photos Douglas Beauchamp, May 2026.  Wondering… how to picture and say abandonment?  The presence in absence?  Loneliness out on the range?  Perhaps cowboys entertained those questions. As did the Buddha.