AGE OF BROKEN PROMISES, John Garmon

house-with-creekHouse with Creek, Romona Youngquist, 48 X 36, Oil


AGE OF BROKEN PROMISES

To my anonymous friends in Montana
Now I want to get in touch after all these years
I want to find you on the internet
And send a message to astonish you
Out from the western shore you traveled
To a place where coal was being taken daily
Tons of black ore that once lived as animals
Now serving again after a thousand centuries
Carrying our heavy burdens like pack mules
Or speeding cars on abnormal highways
I remember you drifting in from the sea
From salt air and southern wildflowers
This was before your anonymity
In your hidden earth attacked by vandals
In huge machines digging for quick profits
Dead leaves fell when the scoops went in
Bending of hearts of indigenous people
Scattered like crumbs in clanging kitchens
Please pardon my mixed metaphors
I woke up with my head in another time
I had lived in an age of broken promises
Now I know we hear this silence in common
I am coming in and going out with speech
You live in a cabin outside of Missoula
In a valley where the air is often polluted
I think of your there in the falling snow
I sometimes hear you singing in the dark
We were lost to each other in sunlight
Somehow maybe someday we will be
Together again

________________
John Garmon

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