Between Dog and Wolf
I went insane, you know. Certain Glacier
epiphanies under the eastern mountain
front affected a cure, continental divide
road goings of sorts. My point of origin
does not matter, not anymore, Yellowstone
was only a fleeting southerly destination.
Glacier to Yellowstone, the beauty between, destined
rendezvouses, lucid happenings. Running from Glacier,
running the road, the roadhouses to Yellowstone,
rivers and ranges back and forth, unwinding Montana
time and again, each trip renewed adventure. Life originating
everywhere, river to river, south then north, bivouacked atop the divide
snuggled in a sleeping bag. Two years of continental divide
roadwork set time straight. Unexpected destinations
renew a man, the incarnate nothingness that originates
from rambling, rambling from knapsack-backpack Glacier
down the cordillera to Old Faithful. Visions of passage. Mountain
bunchgrass catching first light under an overthrust of ocean stone.
The road blow cleans; Chinook wind all the way to the Yellowstone
River. Relentless therapy. A white line divides
the highway down the front, someday leading back, Rocky Mountains
indeed. Different routes, different stories, each new destination
revealing another secret hidden under the front. Each vision a glaciation
of life. A vanquished soul can find his long-lost origins
in Great Falls at the Nugget Bar. Yes. Original
music swims the Missouri into the ozone of Yellowstone
beckoning an upstream beat. Rural glacis’
of flowing drink, morained Métis women. Shelterbelts of whiskey divide
the men from their women, unhinging them. Destined
love rifts a man into the heart of Montana,
love-locked down in Butte under the mother of mountains,
where the blessed white virgin smiles over the daughters of Irish immigrants originating
from famine to mines to lost todays. French voyageurettes look for Hi-line destinies
in scattered places. Daughters, great granddaughters, children of stoned
immigrants spawned by freedom, the passion to work the divisions
of a frontier. We all seek recapitulation. Up and down the Great Plains glacé
white fur trappers once sought mountain magic on their way to Yellowstone,
not unlike me. Rivers of free beaver originate envoi from the ancient divides
that always lead me back to my destined home under the milking tides of Glacier.
