I met Bob Dylan near Two Medicine Lake.
He drove out of Cut Bank in an old Winnebago,
as if blown in with a Chinook.
Cloudy day and rainy night right behind him.
The sky brooding as I’m sure he and I had done before,
over nothing and everything.
Sitting, listening, and thinking of nothing (Her).
The wind whining a wordless tune,
like he composed it himself to keep me awake at night.
A campfire and a guitar strummed by a middle aged brunette,
Imploring me… “Stay forever young” as her life was half over.
The incantation floated over my head with the ash.
She, just like the wood on the campfire,
burned up with each passing year.
Burning embers, Flames, and smoke remind me
that I met Bob Dylan near Two Medicine Lake.
I wrote this poem way back in the early 2000’s as I was reflecting on a trip to Montana that I had taken only a year or two previous. I spent two weeks in Glacier National Park with people I barely knew. I had heard Bob Dylan songs before and never really cared for them, but one visitor to the campsite introduced me to his music again around the campfire while she strummed her acoustic guitar.
This poem has been rejected many times but it still means something to me.