Montana Song

I went out to Montana

With a bible on my arm

Looking for my fathers

On a long-abandoned farm

And I found what I came looking for

I drove into a churchyard

Of what used to be the town

Walked along a cowpath

Through the fences falling down

Till I found what I came looking for

Through the dust of summer noons

Over grass long dying

To read the stone and lumber runes

Where my past was lying

High among hillsides and windmill bones

Soft among oak trees and chimney stones

Blew the wind that I came looking for

And the wind blew over the dry land

And dusted my city soul clean

To read in my great-grandfather's hand

From his bible newly seen

Born James McKennon, 1862

Married Leantha, 1884

Two sons born in Montana

Praise the Lord!

The gentle wind of passing time

Closed the bible pages

And took my hand and had me climb

Closer to the ages

The picket fence, the lattice frame

The garden gone to seed

Leantha with the fragile name

Defying place and need

Declares this bit of prairie "tame"

And sees her fingers bleed

And knows her sons won't live the same

But she must live her creed

The fallen barn, the broken plow

The hoof print hardened clay

Where is the farmer, now

Who built his dream this way

Who felled the tree and cut the bough

And made the land obey

Who taught his sons as he knew how

But could not make them stay

Who watched until the darkness fell

To know the boys were gone

And never loved the land so well

From that day on

"Father James," they wrote him

Each a letter once a year

Words of change that broke him

With the new age that was here

And the new world they'd gone looking for

The clouds arose like phantom herds

And by the dappled lighting

I read again the last few words

In a woman's writing

March 1st, 1921

Last night, Papa died

Left one plow, a horse, his gun

This bible, and his bride

The long grass moved beside me

In the gentle summer rain

And made a path to guide me

To a sudden mound of grain

A man and wife are buried there

Children to the land

With young green tendrils in her hair

And seedlings in his hand

I went out to Montana

With a bible on my arm

Looking for my fathers

On a long-abandoned farm

And I found what I came looking for