Monthly Archives: January 2014

No trace, no drizzling mist—
she will really have to rain
into the night into the dawn

into the draws into the creek
into a rising frothy broth for weeks
to address our growing list of jobs

unfurled, saved for a rainy day.
We’ve emptied the barn: ‘making
hay while the sun shines’ available

to hungry cattle far too long
to remember all the work postponed
to keep them alive—the basic

little jobs that maintain the machinery
runs smoothly, heart and mind
intact. But first, the oil and grease

to lubricate the old joints: time
to rejoice and celebrate, to marvel
with the miracle of a rainy day.

With no puddles or streams
to wade, the Great Blue Herons
frozen in pastures wait

for movement of earth like
sentries over gopher mounds
all summer long. A Harris’s Hawk

claims a rock among a million
cow chips daring a squirrel
to make a living outside

his burrow. Everyone grounded,
we crave ascension—to leave
in a haze or rise with the dust.

Like poetry over whiskey, neighbors
in from feeding, first day of two-fourteen,
glasses raised to the native cows and daughters

we prize in hard times. Another language
where words roll near the edge of vulgarity
and descriptive gerundives ricochet around

the kitchen like ice rattling our empty glasses.
But always the allusion of something more
that holds us to this ground, this watershed

we can’t shake, yet celebrate daily
for as long as we can. Crass and basic lines
I try to remember, steal for a poem

in the morning—always another way
of looking—seeing that it is
no small miracle, this earth adapting.

                                                            for Craig and Ronnelle