Home    About the Artist    Anne's Art     Lou's Memorial   Featured Artists    Links    Photos

In Loving Memory of Lou
From Anne

Photobucket

It was right we chose the eagle to grace His garden in memory and in fact.   He reminded me of an eagle...he flew true to his own lights, followed his own nature; fiercely  loyal to those he loved. 

Lou wasn't much for churchgoing. But, having lived with him for so long, I know his belief was in something great and powerful and all-encompassing.  Though he could be a rowdy person, it always seemed to me there was a core of quietness and strength in the center of his soul.  He did not seem to believe so much in a creator as he did the fact there was "reason and logic" behind creation.

Lou respected nature, genuinely loved the Southwest and its cultures and, most of all, the cowboys and the great plains; he honored it all.  He would spend hours watching an eagle in flight, adored riding a good horse, and found solace and joy in the beauty of this earth.  He often said he was born a century too late.  He was a cowboy in his heart and soul.  He appreciated nature in all its forms.  He tried his best to teach me "patience in action", commitment in turmoil and dignity regardless of where and how he was at the moment.  I often find myself looking through his eyes now... and remembering some of what he would tell me.  

Thank you all for helping me celebrate Lou's life....

Photobucket DEATH OF AN EAGLE  - Chief Aupaumut, Mohican, 1725

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different  way.  Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.  

Photobucket As the eagle soars above the skies, one knows he is carrying prayers to the Creator.

The eagle flies highest, sees clearest and brings gifts from the Great Spirit.  Photobucket PhotobucketSame view, different day.
It ended... with his body changed to light.  A star that burns forever in that sky.  AztecPhotobucket
 Photobucket A Cowboy's Prayer Anonymous

Oh Lord, I've never lived where churches grow.
I love creation better as it stood,
That day You finished it so long ago;
And looked upon Your work and called it good.

      I know that others find You in the light,
That's sifted down through tinted window panes.
And yet I seem to feel You near tonight,
In this dim, quiet starlight on the plains.

      I thank You, Lord, that I am placed so well,
That You have made my freedom so complete;
That I'm no slave of whistle, clock or bell,
Nor weak-eyed prisoner of wall and street.

      Just let me live my life as I've begun,
And give me work that's open to the sky;
Make me a pardner of the wind and sun,
And I won't ask a life that's soft or high.

      Let me be easy on the man that's down;
Let me be square and generous with all.
I'm careless sometimes, Lord, when I'm in town,
But never let m say I'm mean or small!

      Make me as big and open as the plains,
As honest as the hoss between my knees,
Clean as the wind that blows behind the rains,
Free as the hawk that circles down the breeze!

      Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I forget,
You know about the reasons that are hid.
You understand the things that gall and fret;
You know me better than my mother did.
      
Just keep an eye on all that's done and said;
And right me, sometimes, when I turn aside,
And guide me on the long trail ahead
That stretches upward toward the Great Divide.