Wet and warm enough for flies
with the gift of Christmas rains
after a month of fog, slow survivors
cling to the screen door, follow us
inside to die by folded magazine
or the Western Livestock Journal,
perfect tinder saved to start a flame—
perfect weather to lure the green
to rise with black dots of cattle
grazing ridgetops with our eyes.
Inhaling damp, we breathe relief
and sigh how long we wait like flies.
Posted in Photographs
Hot iron on hide,
singe and smoke
I’ll always recognize.
We’ve named mountains,
rivers, canyons and creeks
after the first cowmen here
or a faraway feeling
like Farewell Gap
or Hole in the Ground
that lasts longer
than the grip of commerce
and jumbled signage
where the flats
are cut with streets
and impatient traffic.
It’s human nature
to leave your mark
to not get lost.
Poetry is another kind of branding. -Gary Soto
Posted in Photographs
I count the barks in the dark
before sunrise, dog on the job
as I try to cypher who intrudes
our tranquility—so much like
tragic news in the daylight
hunting humanity and me
after the primal bellowing
of bulls echo the canyon,
or the solo owl in a nearby oak
searching for an answer,
as joyous choruses of coyotes
find one another
before the day’s work
of stalking rodents
or claiming carrion.
Earthbound, they can’t fathom
the news I hear and read,
feel it clutch mind and heart,
the wounded part of me
cut both ways
for being human.
Posted in Photographs
The black heifers gather to me
thinking hay, early training
if they make the cut today.
Ultrasound, much less invasive
than palpation, long arm searching
for an embryo to make the cowherd—
replacements for the old girls who
will head to town with their empty sisters.
They crowd around me as if I’m God.
Posted in poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged gathering cattle, poetry, processing cattle, Replacement Heifers
Rain nine days away, they say—those prognosticators.
95 degrees third week in March after a month of dry
as the grass on south and west sloping faces
goes to seed next year’s grazing—or so we hope.
Lifetime wagers on the weather,
and gambles on the market for hay and cattle,
we pray that politicians don’t impede our subsistence
to garner more attention—control and votes like always.
We are the pawns in this equation, farmers, shepherds
of this world, tracing dawns along the ridgelines
chasing seasons for generations—filling empty plates
with much more than what most people see.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2026, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, farmers, government, markets, photography, poetry, shepherds, weather
My mother’s favorite,
first of the season,
a family in the same bed
across the creek all these years,
she mentioned fondly
when I was a boy.
Photo: March 24, 2009
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2026, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Baby Blue Eyes, bed, family, wilflowers
The liars punishment is not in the least that he is
not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
- George Bernard ShawWe look to the gods we know
for retribution, the short proverbs
our long lives have proven true
as we await once certain consequences
yet concerned about our absent deities,
afraid that verbal substitutes like
‘taking care of number one’
becomes the mantra,
becomes the drum
that humanity has learned to march to.
Look away from the circus fools
‘lest we give them credence.
On the dark side of the Blood Moon
eclipsed by the shadow of the Earth,
who knows what’s brewing,
an alien bivouac in the tabloids—
all the government secret rendez-vous
with who knows whom or who
is calling the shots, the ICBMs
and loaded drones to kickoff
World War III, a real diversion
from the truth that may not matter—
a puff of smoke to the galaxies,
nothing for the rest us.
In the days before TV
I’d wake to the smell of bacon,
Dad in the narrow kitchen
of the Coffelt house, the radio
reporting war, bombs and fighter jets
over the Suez Canal
I was afraid too close
to our local news and weather report.
I first remember my mother
talking to herself
in that same kitchen
and asking who she was talking to
more often now
as my alter ego
impulsively shares
some candid humor
with and about myself.
The sycamores are pushing leaves
against green hillsides along the creek—
thin clouds smeared upon blue seas
above fresh snow upstream, and we
old timers wait for the wildflowers
we remember, their names and faces
begging for a moment in the sun
far from the news in Washington.
Thank God it finally rained after months
of fog, the only moisture to keep the grass
alive, and only now does it start to grow
after the frost and freezing mornings
that make strong feed. You can see it piled
behind the heifers, instead of puddles,
licking themselves as if their coats
were combed with gobs of Brylcreem.
It’s the little things that tell the story
I’m looking for—Baby Blue Eyes,
Mariposa Lillies and Pretty Faces
to greet me spring mornings.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2026, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged heifers, photography, poetry, strong feed, wildflowers
drycrikjournal 