Montana

geography and identity

Photo by Jonathan Potter ⓒ 2023

The hurly-burly hills of Montana 
Remind me of a life I’ve never lived,
Some other life I might have had if I 
Were someone else but still my selfsame self
Riding on horseback across this valley.

Our Lady of the Rockies scans the sky
From the Continental Divide to the
Beginning of the end of the union
And seems to nod to me as if to say,
You are not who you are in Montana.

Driving from Idaho through St. Regis,
Skirting Missoula, arriving in Butte,
I pull off the interstate and find myself
In the old uptown, laid out on a hillside,
Waiting for an unlikely renaissance.

Get out of there fast and continue on
To Bozeman where an academic glow
Elevates the general crud to something
That could make a case for surviving winter
To get some know-how and a few credits.

What am I doing in Montana?
I ask myself. There’s almost no speed limit
Here, which doesn’t make much difference because
The landscape swallows you up at any speed.
What I need is a horse to make my escape.