Pepper Trail | Poetry | The Land: Word, Image, and Dream

Three places moved me most deeply. First was the Box O, a former ranch that now forms part of the eastern flank of the monument. It nestles in a beautiful shallow valley, through which runs an ever-flowing, life-giving stream, Jenny Creek. It is one of my favorite places on earth.

On that September day, this is how it struck me:

September

Tawny beauty reclines
Between the autumn hills
Supple, subtle, variegated
The meadow a dozing lion
Heedless and mighty
Sleeping off the summer’s feast

For many years this land was a working ranch; for the past ten years, there has been no grazing and much active restoration by the Bureau of Land Management. The human history of the place remains in the cabins and fences and barns, in the alien grasses and star thistle in the meadows, in the young ponderosa pines planted by BLM, now flourishing along the stream, and in the big stumps of their grandfathers, cut by the pioneers.

I love pristine wilderness, but I love this place too, for all it has been through, for how beautiful it remains, for all the dreams that have filled it and have passed on. Inside a small cabin a stone’s throw from Jenny Creek, now groaning under the weight of a great dead pine that has collapsed upon it, these words are written on the wall:

“This cabin was built in 1983 by Rocky and Suzy Courtney.
We came to this country broke but with a Dream!!
To build a beautiful herd of cows!! WE DID IT!!"

Cows play no part in my own dreams, and in fact I’m not fond of those beasts at all. I’m very glad that they are now longer trampling and fouling Jenny Creek. And yet, I felt a strong human connection to the Courtneys when I read their inscription. I recognize their emotion, and I respect their dream. It was rooted in the land. Standing at the end of this valley, looking over the spreading meadows, even I can imagine how good it must look to a lover of cows. As good, perhaps, as it looks to me, a lover of trout, of elk, of orioles and otters.