Riding through Butte in the passenger seat,
soaking in the drab street front facades.
It could have been blue collar anywhere U.S.A.
save for the Rockies and the casino gods.
The town seems like a scene from a Klondike
gold rush movie. The prospectors come to town
With their hard earned gold and heads held high,
and leave with empty pockets and heads hung down.
Greeted by neon giants standing erect on iron pillars
and blinking babies affixed like pimples on a teen;
marring the landscape and making the town
Less rustic, more vulgar, or something in between.
From high on a ridge in the mountains above
a 90-foot virgin looks down on all the sinners.
Though hardly seeing, she consecrates their
Hands and quarters, or so believe the winners.
But Butte is like a pocket full of fool’s gold;
If it is inspected too closely with the naked eye
from the passenger seat the beauty is lost.
It is best from a distance set against the big sky.