The Literary Fly Fisher

A few days ago, I fished my home water, the North Fork of the Blackfoot, in Montana. Afterwards, I stopped by the closest fly shop, The Blackfoot Angler, in the tiny town of Ovando. As I entered the shop, a book of poetry happened to catch my eye. I flipped through it and noticed a poem about the North Fork. The book is titled The Wind Blows White (Conflux Press, 2014), and it is written by Eldon Wren Beck. a well-known landscape architect.  Beck has a daughter living in the Blackfoot River Drainage, and this area inspired some of his writings. Beck’s poem follows.

The North Fork, looking south, into a flat.

Near the North Fork of the Blackfoot

I.

My sack of memories spill open

as drops of a long life

trickle through sun-lit dust

of another day.

In the verdant meadow

a rutted lane passes

by a staggered fence

amidst fields and forest.

II.

Here, a lonely cabin

with roof askew and porch derelict,

random boards nailed

over sightless windows.

No longer tales to tell in rooms within.

III.

Mouldering stumps hunker in the grass.

Once-proud pines lay in decay.

IV.

I bow to youthful vigor, squint

into the warm evening

where Grandpa chuckled

at his own jokes

and cows now rub against the fence

under the Ponderosa

where seedlings waltz.

This entry was posted on September 3, 2015 at 7:17 PM and is filed under Environmental Literature, The Arts, The Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.