All them foreigners that move here
they always tell me that they've come
To search for open spaces
‘cause cities made ‘em feel so numb
They came out here to Montana
to a place where they could feel free
To bulldoze out the pristine streams
and chop down the Aspen trees
To tear away the lodge pole pine
ponderosas and tamarack
Dig away the mountain side
and cram their houses back to back
They flatten out the rolling hills
to build a shopping mall or two
Built all them buildings so damn tall
their blocking out the mountain view
They've taken all the wildflowers
and laid down asphalt and cement
Put solar panels on their roofs
'cause that’ll save the environment
Should a deer wander into town
they want the law to do the deed
Because having wild critters around
is something that they just don't need
They say that they feel better now
with all the beauty they can see
Just sitting in their sealed off rooms
watchin' nature shows on TV
Categories:
ponderosas, poems, poetry,
Form: Rhyme
My quest to walk across the nation,
like vaunted pioneers of old,
started in Maine six months ago,
post vlogs of my progress for folks.
I am deep in Wyoming now,
and I’m on my third pair of shoes,
brown grass beneath, cropped by cattle,
in front the prairie meets its end.
It’s a spread of foot-hills at first,
low and slashed by gullies, canyons,
their slopes half-forest, half-open,
perfect space for elk to graze.
Cannot see any up there now,
though a few buzzards wheel about,
behind them loom big, granite waves,
frozen forever into peaks.
Not the first to just stand and stare,
nor am I the last, I suspect.
There are goats up there, snowy white,
and grizzled bruins, huge and brown.
Mulies with their tall, forked antlers,
and charging, spiral-horned sheep,
darting amidst blazes of aspen,
near soldier-strait ponderosas…
Snow still clings on, up near the crests,
I don’t think it will ever leave.
Nearby, a decrepit wagon,
old wood bleached by endless sun.
Is it a relic of the past?
Or decoration of today?
Who knows, but its path ended here,
mine continues, right through the peaks.
Categories:
ponderosas, animal, appreciation, beauty, imagery,
Form: Blank verse