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.
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.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek Road, snow, Sulphur Peak, weather
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.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal
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.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry
Tagged development, Humanity, nature, photography, poetry, politics, power, weather
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.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry
Tagged better place, L.E.REA, Mt. Tamalpais, painting
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
Posted in Poems 2024, poetry
Tagged Cowboy Myth, Fredrick Jackson Turner, Johnthan Hettinger, poetry, ranchettes, The West, western wear, Yellowstone Series
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.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
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.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Christmas, Gabe Arroyo, honey, New Years, old days, photography, poetry, recipe, tequila
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.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, photography, poetry, rain, rocks, seed, weather, wild
First rain
the gophers clean their houses,
stack tailings high
where the Great Blues wait,
stand like statues,
like soldiers across the pasture
for the slightest movement
of well-worked mounds
to stab a meal—then toss it up,
catch open-beaked
and let it slide
down a snaky neck.
My father loved them,
loved the fact
they were working for him.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry
Tagged Dry Creek, gophers, Great Blue Herons, photography, poetry, rain
