Monthly Archives: December 2013

Too many grandfather oaks, like generals
overlooking generations of rooted acorns,
occupy the north slopes, troops erect

to the sky—too much silt either side
for landlocked sycamores with centuries
of persistence waiting for the creek to rise.

It was an avalanche of mud and rock,
half the mountain sliding into the Kaweah
to form Pogue Canyon, change its course

before our time—our moment in the canyon
as the planet wobbles on its axis,
finds its balance with the squabbling

of humanity. Close to the earth:
evidence everywhere you look
that someday in this place, it will rain.

                                        Slowly the sun creeps across the floor;
                                        it is coming your way. It touches your shoe.
                                                  – William Stafford (“It’s All Right”)

All the shades of brown are crisp now,
mid-December light, shadows linger
to look like cows frozen on bare hillsides,

leaves litter the dry creek bed as sycamores
show flesh, willows burn in between
like lanterns. Blue Oaks become frightened

skeletons on the run. It is a drought
and it is beautiful, everything giving-up
at once, looking to die. The top heavy

flatbed stacked another layer high
squats and groans down the road,
string of thin black cows following

inside the barbed wire like perfectly
disciplined children—all makes sense.
It’s simple now for quite awhile.

There is a place for solitude
somewhere apart, space
to let the mind run with options,

to explore the unknown,
circle and find new perspective
before gravitating home.

Singing in the backcountry,
my horse and mules
the only souls to hear for days

when I was seventeen, in love
with possibility, the words
fell into place like water

in a river, spontaneous lines
reaching out to touch the tops
of trees and granite peaks

I would never climb—
a place to let the mind run
without a smart phone.

All those uncertain emotions,
suspicions, she brings glimpses
of another world I can’t trust

anymore. Gone so long
to God knows where,
wreaking havoc on TV.

The perfect pastoral scenes
too good to be true—
my mind leaps like a child

rolling downhill
through ripening wild oats
over my head.

I am afraid
to look her in the eye,
afraid she’ll see

my anticipation pulse
with wanting. I am
her supplicant, and

in truth, her slave.
How she controls me!
I look away.

It is easy to be disappointed with gods
bringing only a veil of mist
when we hunger for rain.

We have dismissed our lust
for days and nights of dark storms
that seems beyond our means—

swollen creeks and gushing floods
fade in the distance, flake
like bark from dehydrated flesh.

Only the purple cotyledons
of Red-Stem Fillaree still believe
in miracles, open yet to the heavens,

to the sky. We load the goosenecks
with young girls for town,
shiny and fat with months of alfalfa—

say goodbye to what could have been
better than the auction ring. We know
the gods can’t do everything.

                                        A long time ago, before the Wuk-chum’-nees came to Id’-ik,
                                        the Kaweah River, the old-time bird and animal people who
                                        lived at Sho-no’-yoo near Lemon Cove almost starved. There
                                        was no rain. The ground was dry and bare. Trah’-tah, the
                                        Oak tree had no acorns. There was no Kis’-tin seed, no Kaw’-
                                        wah seed, and no Chee’-tut clover. Tro’-khud, the Eagle;
                                        Wee’-hay-sit, the Mountain Lion, and all those people had
                                        nothing to eat.
                                                             – F.F. Latta (“The Great Famine”)

We have grown numb to the dry,
plodding circles, feeding hay,
weighing which girls go, who stays.

We, who think we have the best to offer
bird and animal people, grow calloused
to the color, to the dawn, to the day

after day of the earth struggling.
Grandfather oaks lay down, pull
their roots free to serve leaves

to cattle. Nothing is as it was,
no cycle or sign into the future,
no escape except that empty gaze

before ascension when the soul
prepares to leave the flesh,
collecting essentials, just in case.