Almost invisible, these gods
are not immortal, not
the all-powerful deities
displayed for symbols
and slogans – some haven’t even
a name to trade your mind
and heart for, like in heaven,
where pouting angels
look down with envy
upon their pagan games.
These gods slip upon you
around a flame, surround
like darkness, touch your
shoulder, or cover the flesh
in a dry rain of oak leaves –
they breathe the memories
of all that’s gone before –
living secretly among us.
Posted in Poems 2011
Kaweah Watershed - January 10, 2011
The gray fog and low clouds clinging to these saturated foothills finally gave way to a little sunshine yesterday. This shot of the snowpack in the Kaweahs was taken from a ridge below Sulphur Peak. I attempted the loop in Greasy to check the cows and calves and to make certain that our bulls were still home working, and to assess the condition of our roads. It’s WET, water running, dribbling, oozing everywhere. With an accumulation since December 15th, our rain gauge overflowed, holding 12 inches when completely full – a lot of rain for this country in a little over two weeks.
Creek in the Road
I ran into the creek at the bottom of Sulphur, a part of the flow diverted into the road up the draw by limbs, leaves and debris that I was able to remove with a shovel and chainsaw. Remarkable runoff when one considers that the last significant rain occurred a week ago.
All the stock ponds are full and running out their spillways. I couldn’t complete my loop because the pond at Grapevine was going over the dam/road, and I had to backtrack through Sulphur to get off the mountain. Despite the cold on the Kubota, it was exhilarating to see some sun and cattle.
Slick - calves unbranded
(click photos to enlarge)
Posted in Photographs
Tagged Greasy Creek, Great Western Divide, Kaweah, rainfall, Sulphur Peak
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
– William Stafford, (“The Way It Is”)
Out on Highway 99, silhouettes of semi-trucks
appear in the fog, grow into tiny lights ahead
or leer, big-eyed from behind in a blind rush –
up and down the Valley – like trains submerged,
caravans tunneling this thick and gray resistance
to time’s unfolding as the road grows longer.
The Real Birds came visiting in their Cadillac
and laughed at how I measured miles to Fresno
by the clock, grinning from a grounded dimension.
Our thread is not a straight line connecting cities,
but meanders more like a creek with gravity –
with the flow or against the current to its source.
Posted in Poems 2011
Tagged fog, Highway 99, Real Bird, The Way It Is, thread, William Stafford
April 3, 2006
These 2006 photographs caught my eye while looking for some color here, for something other than poetry, and even these gray shots of Lemon Cove lift my spirits. The fog, clinging to these saturated hills since the New Year, drizzles today, weighs heavy on the eyes and mind. We haven’t seen our cattle for a month, haven’t got a calf branded, ground too wet to get a pickup to them.
Clarence drove his Kawasaki Mule to the Paregien Ranch in the fog yesterday, choosing the cold and wet over pacing the house, to find the rain gauge full, roads sloughed and so wet, we’ll probably have to ride from Dry Creek to gather and brand them after a week or so of sunshine and no rain.
I haven’t been across the creek since our Corb Lund replay of ‘The Truck Got Stuck’ New Year’s morning with the birders, my son and the neighbors, since another inch and three-quarters rain. The work is stacking-up as we begin to think about Elko, wondering how we’re going to get it all done.
Lemon Cove Women's Club - April 3, 2006
Posted in Photographs
Tagged Corb Lund, Lemon Cove, Lemon Cove Women's Club, My Truck Got Stuck, rain, weather
Thick tan hide, deep acorns cut
worn dark and smooth by time
and horses ambling one-by-one
over the knoll – bays and sorrels,
some with chrome, a brown, a paint,
two duns – all with names
I remember in different places
that have not changed since
these tarnished silver conchos
squinted blindly beneath
the saddle strings, white
sun on the snow at the door
in Billy Maloy’s driveway.
The flesh was young then,
before winning the West
took a lifetime, made truth
an elaborate myth for men
to pass with coffee, or whiskey –
for women to correct and clarify
with facts that didn’t seem to matter
then, on this ground around
where canyons, trees and rocks
have kept their names,
for yet another generation going
gray with the seasons spun
like tigers into butter –
not that long ago, it seems.
…the barn light interrupts the dark
with hope – cars and sound, dead asleep
for miles, while old children parcel
a carcass in their dreams, each
playing on the edge of their grave
for a chance to win, another roll
on the same thin blanket spread
upon her flesh for generations –
drawing lines while she still breathes,
for yet another surgery. Here, we
hold her hand and pray once more
for the gods we’ve come to know.
Posted in Poems 2011
A silhouette, coiled and buzzing
between the hand I held and the roaring
river as my babysitter screamed,
when we first met on the Tule.
And since so many times I lost count
by seventeen, your rattles in a bowl
little bugs turned to dust. Yet
you knew how to spy on dreams,
face-to-face, long after. You have
the hay barn and the loading chute,
count our bales and cattle weighing
good and bad boiled down to numbers
before your annual report to Tihpiknit
still living in the bottom of a rock pile.
Please give the Underworld our best
and think about an alliance if you can
overlook my ignorance. I’ll chant
and sing, I’ll even try to dance.
Posted in Poems 2011
Tagged Frank Latta, Native Myths, Rattlesnake Dance, Tihpiknit, Trahundun, Trudum, Wukchumni, Yokuts
Don’t say too much – trust
instead from whence you come
to sing its own song, and listen
closely for what can’t be said
with words, for the timid
peering through the brush –
for the Canyon Wren’s call
falling eerily within us.
You are the native, be
generous, leave something
on the doorstep to keep
guns inside the house.
Don’t say too much – they
have bastardized the words,
weaned them early, turned
them out without a home.
Posted in Poems 2011
How good to see that the sky is still blue! We’ve logged another 1.76″ rain since New Year’s Day, extending our gray days to nearly three weeks straight.
Not one to be caught complaining about rain, we spent New Year’s morning reenacting Corb Lund’s The Truck Got Stuck when I went to winch the local Audubon, on their Christmas Bird Count, out of our ‘dobe Flat – getting stuck myself, and then my son’s truck come to rescue me, breaking a chain and a cable before we were able to send them on their way as it began to pour. Bob and I, still embedded in the clay, had to enlist the good nature of our neighbors, pickups winching, leapfrogging backwards, one after another out of the bog to terra firma.
Always humorous once you’re out of the mud, I emailed an audio clip of Corb’s song to Rob Hansen, group leader, who has since rewritten Corb’s lyrics to more accurately fit our landscape and circumstance. All’s well that ends well – no feeling more helpless than being stuck in the mud a long ways from the road home in the rain.
Posted in Photographs
Tagged Corb Lund, mud, rain, The Truck Got Stuck, truck, weather, winch
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