A taste of rain tinkling in the downspout
too light to hear upon the metal roof,
yet under this common wet covering
her scent mends everything
for the moment, for another beginning
and we inhale it—lungs full of new life.
And when we pray, it’s to the Goddess—
mother, lover—for our sustenance,
for the bloom and fruit of flesh renewed
as the damp earth exhales, breathes easily
to taste each lingering drop
that settles upon its petaled tongue.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, flower-friday, goddess, photographs, poetry, rain, water, weather, wildlife
Carnival colors
reflected on a breeze—
Disneyland for a duck.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged American Widgeon, birds, Dry Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, water, weather, wildlife
Dear Dawn, I await you in a cavern
of wet blackness, upstate exhaust hangs
between me and the suns and stars
of my reward, (or as far as I have seen
of infinity), as the dew from the last rain
clings to each unhealthy particulate,
camouflaged to look and feel like fog.
I have missed your smile, bright eyes,
and warm touch across the landscape
of my face, but we inhale this wet veil
holding clay slopes damp, moistening
each cotyledon struggling to break free
from the earth’s grip to make grass,
turn hills green with the circumambulation
of black dots—cows and calves grazing.
Another ugly day without you, feeding
hay in gray, but it ain’t all bad—
I’ll see you when I can. xxooxxoo, J.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged bad air, Calves, cows, dawn, Drought, Dry Creek, feeding, fog, photographs, poetry, rain, water, weather
I inhale deeply. Cigarette,
bad air, taste of damp earth
spinning in a picture too big to see.
Against one another,
the young bulls rub like teen-age
boys built for work, flexing
between play and combat,
clods of first-rain mud
dried upon their foreheads,
they sway like one beast
plodding towards hay,
from habit more than hunger.
In two weeks, bellows
will fill the canyon, the world
will change from maternal peace
to untamed cacophony,
primal roars and screams
piercing our pastoral quietude
for another calf, another day—
one more season of grass
to inhale deeply.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Calves, cows, Dry Creek, haiku, milk, photographs, poetry, weekly-photo-challenge
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Dry Creek, Fire, friends, garden, haiku, neighbors, photographs, poetry, weekly-photo-challenge
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged haiku, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry, rain, San Joaquin Valley, weather, weekly-photo-challenge
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Dry Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, Strawberry Clover, weekly-photo-challenge, wildflowers
With rain upon the loose debris
of last year’s feed,
come first leaves of grass.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Dry Creek, feed, grass, haiku, photographs, poetry, rain, red-stem filaree, Walt Whitman, water, weather
When the earth can be worked, they come
to investigate. Horses peer over fences,
cattle stare through barbed wire, but
the Roadrunners come in pairs like cops
on patrol inspecting changes to the ground
they claim, including us, without fear.
The quail fall out of the Live Oaks
well after dawn, tittering like children
late for school, gray coveys rolling
off the hill to graze new ways
to the water trough, and we claim them
all like family, one that gets along—
a sense of belonging greater
than ownership, taken root and proven
to be more than enough to feel secure.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged birds, Dry Creek, garden, Home, photographs, poetry, quail, water, wildlife
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