Driving to Missoula

Milton Jordan

August 22, 2021

for Anne

The nature of tomorrow seldom

troubles today, but yesterdays hover

over morning’s cloudy dawning, lifting

a bit in the brighter afternoon.

Remember dust rising behind tractors

pulling four-blade plows to turn under

dry stalks of drought-dwarfed corn west of Dalhart?

Once, a Saturday as I recall, 

we drove into Pinedale and you were writing

your Crows Were In An Argument song

so I was reluctant to stop the car.

You finished that tune the next afternoon

when we were closer to Missoula.

Milton Jordan lives in Georgetown with the musician Anne Elton Jordan. His most recent poetry collection is What the Rivers Gather, SFASU Press, 2020. Milton edited the anthology, No Season for Silence: Texas Poets and Pandemic, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2020.