Category Archives: poetry

WAITING FOR THE STORM

Posted on March 12, 2025 by | 3 comments

Early spring garnish
before a mid-March rain,
wild colors claiming

lush shades of green
that cattle finish grazing
by eight o’clock.

Everybody feels
what’s coming,
despite the sunshine—

despite the rattling
of sabers
from would-be kings.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal

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DAYLIGHT SAVINGS

Posted on March 9, 2025 by | Leave a comment

Dad claimed it was the politicians
far away from farming
that saved day’s end for golf,

adding another hour in the field
to get the harvest in
as summer days grew longer.

Just like a bank,
sunlight loaned for how to spend it,
work or play?

Now no matter which
we still change hands
on his vintage clock.

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Snow on Sulphur

Posted on March 7, 2025 by | Leave a comment 






Snow comes off the mountain
on the backs of trucks,
white caps on compacts





like trophies
to melt on roads
into town—





cold hands
shoveled dirt driveways
steer downhill.











							

	
			

				
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						Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal					

								
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SPILT PAINT


			

				Posted on March 4, 2025 by  | 2 comments
			


				

				











Our canyon gleams
with sunlit shades
of rejuvenated green,





dirt tracks damp
after rain, white skiffs
of popcorn flowers





primed to usurp the flats
and gentle slopes
to divvy up with gilded





fiddleneck before the blue
lupine and golden poppies
display the sloppy guise





of springtime’s spilt paint
for photographs, daydreams
and April showers.











							

	
			

				
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						Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal					

															

		


		
	


			

			
ON A GRAY DAY


			

				Posted on February 10, 2025 by  | 1 comment
			


				

				











1.
Crows circle,
coyotes skulk
and a Red Tail watches





on a bare oak branch
for a ground squirrel
to wake and warm





atop a rock at dawn.
Everybody’s hungry
in February.





2.
Cold marble ceiling,
precursor to another
stream of storms predicted





to test the levees,
erase the landscapes
of man’s mistakes,





but likely missing
a golden opportunity
for humanity.





3.
The imbalanced weight
of man’s achievements
and herded hostilities





wobbles the planet’s
tipsy equilibrium
between war and peace,





the struggle for power
over Nature
to right herself.











							

	
			

				
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						Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry					

								
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LIKE A WINDOW


			

				Posted on January 25, 2025 by  | 3 comments
			


				

				






Mt. Tamalpais – L.E. Rea (1868-1927)







There are no windows on the south wall
to let the sun’s heat into a hot summer room, 
but a 3’ x 5’  L. E. Rea painting framed 
of Mt. Tam I thought was Montana 
when I was a boy in my grandfather’s house 
hanging above the mantle over the blazing, 
hairy arms of grapevines pruned, hauled 
and piled for the winter by the barn 
with the remains of corrals for draft 
horses and mules back in the day—that
my sister and I damned-near burned down
playing with matches. The fire trucks came
at dusk from town, sirens screaming closer
before I ever saw the flames.

Sunlight through mottled clouds
on the hillside near begs my eyes to stay. 
Its bare, steep peak drawing me 
from my desk to the south wall
like a window to a better place.














							

	
			

				
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						Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry					

								
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YELLOWSTONE MYTH


			

				Posted on January 1, 2025 by  | 10 comments
			


				

				







The TV cowboys have the best
scripts, estates and corporate jets
to glorify an endangered West
planted with ranchettes

like Jimson Weed
to play make believe
with 100 X beaver lids
and Lucchese boots

no cowman could afford
for looks to match the myth.
  

 https://inthesetimes.com/article/yellowstone-tv-show-finale-gentrification-development-west




 


Comment:


I live within minutes of the Dutton Ranch. It was/is a cartoon of itself long before Hollywood “found” it . As it was “built” on the same mythology before “Yellowstone”  it is NO surprise Hollywood found it perfect for the perpetuation of the myths.   That it is in the Bitteroot Valley, portrayed as Paradise Valley actually on the Yellowstone River , not the Bitterroot River is the least egregious offense of artistic license.

Yes, the perfect set and backdrop to advance the mythology and to pump in enough cash for a few years to “jazz up” a very poor local economy, enriching a few while leaving them detritus of unaffordable housing and other long term burdens that go with ALL boom and bust cycles.

That the “series” collided with  a pandemic driven, house bound, binging viewership was an unfortunate coincidence.  That, along with the ridiculous home prices in some places fueled a mass migration to seemingly cheap relocation opportunities.  The migrants arrived with mountains of cash and the beatific notions of their new “home” grounded in the mythologies absorbed from a screen that they continue to be glued to as the beauty of the real Montana is paying the exorbitant price for simply being beautiful; as if there are NO other considerations.

“They” know not of what they’ve wrought.


-jegrant47
							

	
			

				
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						Posted in Poems 2024, poetry					

								
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SUNDAY


			

				Posted on December 30, 2024 by  | 1 comment
			


				

				








Light rain like fog
gray in the canyon
closes the world away—

privacy to contemplate
the prolonged moment
that asks no questions

of the no one
you have become
among the mountains.


							

	
			

				
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						Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal					

								
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DRY CRIK CRAWL


			

				Posted on December 27, 2024 by  | 6 comments
			


				

				







Gabe Arroyo would make his rounds
like a jovial Santa at Christmas
with a pickup load of honey and Patron

on the ranches where he kept his hives
for the winter—have an early morning toast
to the New Year:

	1 generous shot of Tequilla
	2 shots of fresh-squeezed orange juice
	in a glass of pomegranate nectar

leftover from Robbin’s jelly. He’d get a jar 
and we’d have another round or so 
his son-in-law could drive him home.

Gabe’s gone, but we make merry
with his holiday spirit
as if he were still here.
 

							

	
			

				
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						Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal					

								
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SOLSTICE 2024


			

				Posted on December 22, 2024 by  | 2 comments
			


				

				







Last year’s fine hair,
dry and hollow-stemmed
screens renewed green

sheltered in rocks
that once were one
mind, one set of eyes

to record the wild cycle
of new roots from old
seeds of life — hope

and grace apart
from the rubble 
of mankind.



							

	
			

				
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						Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal					

								
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