Poetry & writing by contemporary visual Montana artist,
Douglas E. Taylor

Poems inspired by nature, Montana, the spirit of the western United States, and
those things that move us, seen and unseen.

We love our acre of the universe,
actually borrowing a fraction of a second,
grateful to mortgage the time,
with monthly installments of wonder
and mysterious longing,
to know and be more
somehow
being
us

Fall Swallows the Woods

Birds disappear as leaves leave
flutter earth down
Empty autumn sound
Felt smooth touches ground
Bare branches stem against a cold sky
Limbs reaching, searching
         for foliage, always tries
The woods would do their other thing in the spring
Now they prepare to be even more still
          in the impending winter chill
Fall swallows the woods
follows the cooler breeze between the trees
where storms occur and sky fits
tightly between the laced grove

Study in blue from the wild garden
(companion poem for image From the Wild Garden)

Camas lily, lupine, larkspur, sky
A range of blue sprinkled in the green of June
When the wind of spring dances
With the breeze of summer
Acres of color surprising the wonder of life
Abundance saturated with the magic of nature
and the fortunate witness of splendor.
Showered in warm light and cool air
Sensations filled with mere reflections
of visual poems
Rhyming with the changing time
And the unwritten lines.
This is how mountains and meadows breathe.
This is why the seasons circle like the great birds in the blue
and creeks flow clear.
This is when the world surrounds where you stand.
This is who you are,
Recognizing the you in me, and the we in us.
This is what you are: something the stars shine on.

A Horseman (A portrait of my father)

Stubborn strength
steadfast-bone headed
lasso muscles coiled
    tied to the past
gentle light behind the eyes
old stories,  worn trails
broken bolts,  breaking colts
laughing at his own jokes
a pretty mare by his side
feelings under the horsehide
two large hands
    have touched the skin and bent the iron
intensely burning coals
the forge’s glow and heats ancient hammer
    striking steel with hard feelings
    anvils beating heart ringing
hooves to roam, the rhythm of a hopeful poem
in the shade of a white hat, in sharp boots,
blue shadow jeans and a snap western shirt
under the windy sun

The last of his kind
kind of like the wild wind
that has blown away
through the sage and the fences
herding the sky

spirit…

Frost in Montana

Silent stars hold the light
and dim the night
Fresh snow muffles sound
My soft thoughts cloud
and glide between the luminary
and frozen ground
under my winter boots
a couple of feet
deep snow hushes
frozen
colorless surrounds

I spy someone
near the forked rural road
across the thick caked field
Robert Frost stands
bundled and still
The poet is the bright moon
in this nightscape
We share the quiet chill
Two hearts recite
both acquainted with the night
compose on this snow-covered evening
our stanzas separated by a few acres
we gaze at the stars
dark and deep

I turn to return
to the warm glow of my home
to write this
and he,
he has miles to go before he sleeps
down, down
the promise of unraveled verse
the one less traversed
has made all the
difference

Many times a river

Many times a river
falls snow, a rain course
river ever runs
destined down to sea
a cloud sung high in a tropical sky
is now frozen still
hung on a mountain tree

The Big Hole

There’s a Big Hole in Montana
And I’ve fallen into it
Fallen in love with how I fit

In the grandness of the landscape
The vastness of the sky
Higher than the mountains rise

There is Wisdom in the valley and I seek what has always been
The life all around as far as I can see
It’s wild and it’s free

Stars paint the sky
The valley as wide as wide can be
Everything is bigger than me
There, there is more to see than meets the eye

As I’ve grown older I’ve found my place
Not my father’s son but my own man
Creating my life under the big sky and being a part of the land
As I can, I’ll make my stand

I am blessed with a second chance
Everyday grateful for a little more time
Every time I look into my loved one’s eyes

I am a little part of this great big beautiful country
Far beyond the Great Divide and the distant glow
I am close to the horizon and the further I know           

Snow Geese (at Freezeout Lake, Montana)

swarms of broken sky
swirls of migration’s animation
fractured forms blending movement
clattering fowl language
shouting
barking orders
and replies as chaos flies
thousands flock and feed
making a white feather-like island afloat at night
clustered in mass on the dark prone lake
rise
in unison with the morning sun
light
lifting
white weightless
clouds
snowing down slow
on brown and golden stubbled fields
wings sing low
instinct fills the chilled air
somewhere between north and
south

2015, 2024©

Great Trout Songs, Sung by Steelhead

I feel the roundness of my planet
The contour of my being
floating above the earthen basin
covered with mountains of saltwater and oceans of sky
My spirit looks down on great birds
Lifting colors as light as air
Blurring the line between here and there
Storms migrate as birds do
Promising to return in another season
Clouds capture light and shower
vapors and devours
An ore of hue
the side of a rainbow trout
Or the pearl of the ocean’s surface
Seen from the grace of space

Making the Sky

May my song be heard like a prayer
Sung in the heart
and through the air
From me to you and all around
Flying through the sky
or standing on the ground.
May the heart of my sentiment be known
May my mind feel the edges of the sky
and fly beyond
May the instinct of my soul be as birds flown

Sandra c.1975

Cold duck and cold dark parks are where we found the three of us
in the warmth of closeness
and within the dreams of art, you, Julie and me.
Some weekends you invited Julie and me to your little house by the river;
We would sing and talk into the night and wake like birds in the morning;
You fed us tea and oranges that came all the way from China.
We saw poems fly above the river and you wrote them down
while Don McLean and Leonard Cohen walked upon the water.

Your house was more a feeling than a place, more of a when than a where.
Julie and I would roll-up in her cream bug. I had no idea how we got there,
being lost in our conversation. All I remember was rain and mist and autumn country roads and the atmosphere of possibility on the road to a shady cove.

I told Julie something about being able to see the largeness of what we were seeing and something about the universe, seeing that in her eyes.
We, three friends, were like that, on the verge of overflowing in our intimacy,
being able to measure the distance to the future.

Today, your house is registered in my mind as a historical place: A prohibition speakeasy hidden from the road, you made it yours, made it grow children and herbs, with an upright piano and
I think there must have been a fireplace; I remember warmth contrasted with the coolness of the season and old dark wood floors where I laid my sleeping bag.
You and your husband’s bedroom, a glass nest looking down onto the river.

We wanted to sail around the world and let the wind comb our hair.
Our back pages being turned by the slightest dream of a breeze.
One night I sang badly the song, Sweet Misery,
to the actual inspiration of the song,
we sat in your living room being vivid.
Being naïve and innocent I really didn’t know what misery was
at the time, only the dream of sweetness.
Everything was a new idea.

For decades you and Julie were a mystery to me, like a note left by Richard Brautigan
in my copy of Kahlil Gibran.
I remember when you didn’t say,
you can hurt someone even if they don’t know it.
Somehow I knew what to do; it was a wild world.
I am comforted by the things that I didn’t do
and the love I remember.

Somewhere Where

Somewhere where the aspens grow
and the wild waters flow

Somewhere where the rivers and horses run
and the mountains rise with the sun

Somewhere where the sky dances around
and the wildflowers sing their lovely sound

That’s where we’ll find you and me,
Our home as far as we can see

Somewhere where the stars put on a show
Somewhere where there is room enough to know
What is really important to us,
About living and loving in the trust
That we are doing our part
Thinking and feeling with our heart

Somewhere where we hear the land singing
The chorus of our souls yodeling

Somewhere where we shout our hymn out loud
Somewhere where we are silent as clouds

Somewhere where we live our dream,
Flowing in harmony, trout in the stream

Somewhere where the aspens grow
and the wild waters flow

Somewhere where the horses and rivers run
and the mountains rise with the sun

That’s where we’ll find you and me,
Our home, as near as we can be

Poems and artworks by Douglas E. Taylor 2024© and various earlier individual copyrights

To read a poem about our home and studio, see the Studio page.
Read the String Theory Suite, written for the special event, The 2020 Equine Extravaganza at Dunrovin Ranch in Lolo, Montana.