Monthly Archives: July 2013

                         …pulling what counts wherever it goes.
                                   – William Stafford (“Troubleshooting”)

We coveted those perfect farms
that seemed to run themselves in the Fifties,
ripe fruit and colorful vegetables waiting

for another painting in a bowl? How we
dreamed of retreating to a quiet life
we could not afford. We had no time

to take chances on little brown birds
chasing through the brush and brambles,
to keep our company secret and private.

And yet, despite the din of all the time-saving
diversions, it makes a living in our garden
and waits for the sprinklers to come on.

I draw a leaf floating,
one of many in a light rain
of color that pools in circles
stirred by breezes
on lawns like Arlington

or click

to black and white
blue oaks wrapped in the first
upcanyon scent of the Pacific,
sheets of dry leather leaves
you can hear hit the ground

or click

to the sleek machine’s
sterile perfection, add accessories
to flawless logic
like jewelry to ideals
to imprint in my mind.

‘Click to toggle’,
computer talk—
I think I know
what it means.

Pine sap leaking from blazes leading
straight off a mountain of trees—
McKee’s cutoff from Bench Lake
to the South Fork of the Kings—
like the laments of old men
living longer than they planned.

There is nothing else to tell
the future, its time-saving
complications, its instant speed,
its youthful dreams headlong
into possibilities I’ll not know.
We led our horses down

the steep north slope, following
my father to this point in time.
All-night thunderstorm at Marion Lake,
huge rainbows, then over Cartridge
to Simpson Meadow dressed
in colored tube tents—Sierra Club, 1958.

Dad, Cut and Don—all gone,
I may have had the best of times
with them: places where there is
damn-little trail to follow,
but only lately taking time
to leave blazes of my own.