Anything can happen
anytime she wants—
normal means nothing now
as the blade retreats
within itself by dusk,
tender green fades to brown
on naked hillsides
weary with the day—
not morning fresh:
ground damp with dew
and darkened rest to reach
deeper into the soil.
We are not in love
nor casual acquaintances,
but bound to her nature—
an unpredictable disposition
with certain privileges—
with certain dues to pay.
Posted in Poems 2014
Every day, every evening, every
abject step or stumble has become heroic—
– William Stafford (“Waiting In Line”)
What once was wild play
when we could right ourselves
and dodge the ricochets,
reach and rope a dream
that danced on a long twine,
is no less heroic now
measuring each hoof beat,
every swing in the branding pen.
I have watched old men
ride closer to the center
of concentric circles in time
spinning quickly on the outside
to find their dot within
a slow-motion bull’s eye
just to inhale the details
that make each moment rich—
and dammit, that’s just what
I’ve gone and done.
Posted in Poems 2014
Tagged "Hay for the Horses", "Waiting In Line", Gary Snyder, William Stafford
February 12, 2014
First real accumulation of snow in the Kaweah watershed this season. It is light, temperatures here in the 70s, it may not last long unless we get another, colder storm soon. The grass is struggling on the south and west slopes where there is no cover of old feed, but overall doing better in the granite (higher elevations) than in the clay.
Not out of the woods by a long shot, we’re still feeding hay at all locations.
January 17, 2014: ‘No Snow’
A music composed of what you have forgotten.
That will end with my ending.
– Jack Gilbert (“Cherishing What Isn’t”)
I remember now, that grand epiphany at 18
on the border of Watts and old town pressed together,
writing in my fifty-dollar stall in ‘The Jungle’—
the Doheny Stables, L.A. in the 60s—absorbing it all.
Fuzzy faces and names who will never know
how they shaped a wide-eyed colt, never hear
the music I whisper now breathing. How the dream
seemed so reasonable, as smooth as wooden-handled tools
I can still use—our each faux pas, a forgotten secret
at the heart of every song. Soon there will be no time
for musing, no tinkling bells for the wind to move
in trees. Soon we will have saved it all for more activities.
Posted in Poems 2014
“I’ll take a rain or a calf anytime,” a saying I heard from Amy Hale Auker that I find especially applicable this year, one she heard from an old Texas cowman. And we’ll damn sure take twins as long as the cow can raise them.
While feeding yesterday, we found another set of twins, about a week old, on Top in the Greasy watershed. Looking much the same as 819’s pair HERE and HERE, it appears that 605 will raise them both. A little green showing at 2,400′.
They disrobe beneath a damp cloak of darkness
between us and the stars, between us and the gods
gone on to other tasks, other games to play
to leave us incubating, once again, with another test.
So it begins after years buffeted by weather, like
Jeffers’ stone outpost grinning through clenched teeth
as the sea roared, battering the cliffs at his feet,
the windblown beards of cypress twisted permanently.
They are finally naked now along the creek, limbs
undulating upon the tarnished gold of old clothes
strewn beneath them, reaching for heaven in unison—
the white tangle of sycamores in Dionysian dance
begins as their backdrop of brown slopes germinates
in grays at first, but as their feathered fingertips green
prematurely. No water in the creek, no prolonged
orgiastic celebration—they dress for an early spring.
Posted in Poems 2014
Robbin’s family gathered here yesterday from Modesto, Merced, Fresno, Coarsegold and Bakersfield for a family get-together, in lieu of Christmas. It was drizzling when I started the barbecue fire, but by evening, a shepherd’s red sky delight.
The wind keeps telling us something
we want to pass on to the world:
Even far things are real.
– William Stafford (“Whispered Into The Ground”)
She lingers yet, tending every canyon, every wish
as if she’d never left—and we appeased like
suckled, scattered babies dreaming upon tall green.
This ground inhales her, swells with seed in the dark
overnight to root and reach for daylight at once—
out of the old dust, trillions of little heartbeats race
with wanting the same lush and steamy dreams
we all share, as the earth comes alive, like it has
every year. And for a moment, we are one
explosion free and full of hope for the world.
Her breath lingers in a mist within the limbs of oaks
gray upon the ridges, as if she’d never left.
Posted in Poems 2014
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