07/02/2024
MONTANA
A visit to the Big Sky country —
thousand mile vistas,
magnificent landscapes dotted with art,
clouds like ballet dancers
and beautiful, dangerous animals everywhere
bison and wolf beside the steaming
thermal springs in Yellowstone Park
bald eagle and grizzly anywhere and everywhere
juvenile male homo sapiens pumping gas
at the Dino convenience store
his stereo at full volume
he flies a flag, he looks around, glaring
"freedom isn't free"
Beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain
but there's an ill wind blowing around
America the beautiful.
Still,
on this summer's morning,
tucked back up here in Mill Creek Canyon
the breeze is song in
the quaking aspen leaves
as it has been for a million years
while
thirty feet downstream, a tan-colored coyote
emerges from the brush to cross the creek.
Pausing midstream, he turns to coolly stare and
regard me.
Maybe some day, coyote brother
you and me gonna crown this good with brotherhood
from sea to shining sea
but for now please forgive us our trespasses
our flags and radios and lumbering violence
as we might learn to forgive those who trespass against us.
Bear with us, brother
here on almost in
dependence day. . . . In a big country . . . dreams stay with you . . . like a lover's voice . . . fires the mountainside
