Another moment of silence
spaced in the whir and clatter
of life’s production, of
what we could be yet—
a chance between chapters
to rewrite the script, choose
the road to our homeland.
Like dawn’s long pause
after the first good rain,
old grasses moldering—
when all the normal birds
sleep-in and quiet rises
from the damp, rich earth.
We try again and start over.
A stumblebum in scree.
– James Galvin (“The Heart”)
We write poetry, yet there are no rules,
no maps, no guarantees on our circumambulation
of loose time stacked, moment upon moment with
a stray epiphany. Traversing the fractured granite
boulders big as hay bales in Dead Man’s Canyon
to fish upstream, I found an old blue bottle
intact, placed it upon a rock for my way back
to camp on Roaring River nearly forty years ago.
The blue upon the speckled gray was like a beacon
that I forgot casting down the other side. The heart
is like that in the mountains, always leaping ahead,
easily sidetracked by reason. Surely someone
found and packed it home full of memories, perhaps
even placed it on the mantle above their fire—
my fragile blue bottle of hope for all I cannot see.
Posted in Poems 2012
They’ve turned the heat up in October,
a few ambitious gods returning to the fire
to bake one last dessert sprinkled with acorn
crumbles for the quail—shook the oak tree
like a bear before the feed truck groaned uphill
for cows and babies hoping for relief. Top notches
bobbing in the road stir the Cooper’s Hawk to leap
and glide, a silent missile in and out of shadows.
Three rows of two stacked on edge ahead of six
flat butterflied, then capped and tied by three
more: twenty-two bales twice, engineered
for the short bed in the shower. Everyone
is on the acorns. Feral hogs and deer, first calvers,
bulls, next year’s heifers—even the saddlehorses
prune the blue oaks, woodpeckers having filled
every crack and bullet hole with a bumper crop,
ready for a hard winter. Jars of cerise pomegranate
jelly put up on the counter, it’s feeding time.
Posted in Poems 2012
October 16, 2012
FERRUGINOUS HAWK
I round the rock pile bend in the dirt road
where he waits atop a different oak tree
than yesterday, checking heifers calving
on uneven ground. He lets me try again:
a bigger lens to capture his assurance
as I edge closer, slower than a cow
but easier than a bobcat in squirrel town.
He knows me better than I know him
Googling photographs of hawks. Come
for a warmer winter than Alberta, he
owns the sky and the short-cropped flats—
pile of pigeon feathers in the horse lot.
for Dave
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2012
And I figured it out,
That we’re gonna do it anyway,
Even if it doesn’t pay.
– Gillian Welch (“Everything is Free”)
In the shade of summer afternoons,
the house strums in another room
with her Dad’s old Martin,
he scattered on the hill above,
new songs she’s learned to play.
Red wine dusk, the cows and calves
come in to listen with the love bird
crows perched in the Live Oak snag.
There is no time for dreaming
with the sunset, when the light
crawls up the darkening ridge,
as coyotes try to sing along.
There is no profit in it,
but to find your joyful song—
and then to let it go.
Song or-☹ Lyrics:
Everything is free now
That’s what they say
Everything I ever done
Gonna give it away.
Someone hit the big score
They figured it out
They were gonna do it anyway
Even if doesn’t pay.
I can get a tip jar
Gas up the car
Try to make a little change
Down at the bar.
Or I can get a straight job
I’ve done it before
Never minded working hard
It’s who I’m working for.
Everything is free now
That’s what they say
Everything I ever done
Gotta give it away.
Someone hit the big score
They figured it out
They were gonna do it anyway
Even if doesn’t pay.
Every day I wake up
Humming a song
But I don’t need to run around
I just stay home.
Sing a little love song
My love and myself
If there’s something that you want to hear
You can sing it yourself.
‘Cause everything is free now
That’s what I said
No one’s got to listen to
The words in my head.
Someone hit the big score
And I figured it out
That I’m gonna do it anyway
Even if doesn’t pay.
– Gillian Welch
Posted in Poems 2012
Tagged 'even if it doesn't pay', 'Everything is Free', finding joy, Gillian Welch
October takes all morning to dress,
scatters color after rain and leaves
her trail of indecision in low light
upon the ground—her closet full
of fading greens catches fire. Alas,
she has nothing left to wear, but
bright embers stirred to cover her
damp, brown skin like sequins.
Mesmerized, I wait beneath hillsides
of bare Blue Oaks for the first freeze
and good rain, for the long-limbed
Sycamores to dance naked in the creek.
Posted in Poems 2012
With a delightful overcast clinging to the foothills after our first showers of the season, I went up into Greasy to check the rain gauge to see if we received enough precipitation to start the grass there. Brisk and cool, I knew I’d see something else ‘out and about’ yesterday morning.
Usually when we see wild turkeys, they are leaving. Pleased to see this bunch, part of the same flock of turkeys we saw at weaning and photographed again on August 22nd in this journal, they were unabashed as they took their communal dust bath.
Even now, the news glides like manes
and tails over me to pass beneath the sun—
sometimes precursors to a good rain,
a dark storm, but mostly mean nothing
to horses and cows, to the bobcat planted
at the outskirts of Squirrel Town, haunches
frozen in the filtered light. There was a time
I yearned to find my legs elsewhere, test
the edge and taste the wild among the crowd,
lust in love and make news of my own.
But born in the sticks, more like a coyote
than a house dog, I crave the space to grow
gray within my nature, stay to the canyon
and let the headlines pass like one more
empty cloud and save my howling for the moon.
This gallery contains 15 photos.
Some clarity is lost in the gallery format. I encourage selecting the full-size option at the bottom right of the gallery frame for a larger, sharper view. In my tunnel vision I missed the second hawk, but you get the … Continue reading
With respect to size, my first herd was small
when I was ten, a dozen Hereford cows
grazing grand dreams, belly-high on green
with calves, all offspring from that one
bottled-fed orphan girl grown too big
for a makeshift shed—a start for a boy
when turned-out on grass that died.
Tears are poor consolation for the death
of dreams brushed with details, bred
and rebred to vanish in deep, damp feed—
or for the anger freed to find its home
within, yet I dream and will dream again.
Posted in Poems 2012
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