Monthly Archives: May 2017

A young Red Tail waits,

                    his nest mate on another
                    set of braces, mother
                    in a sycamore,

for a fresh batch
of baby ground squirrels—
eyes just open now,
but naïve to being
at the bottom
of the food chain.

Eggs and feathers
come early for hawks,
learning to hunt soon after
young rodents are born
full of innocence.

He has never seen a man before
and eyes me curiously, carefully
and will stay the summer
securing the ground around
the corrals dining on squirrels.

Grasses dry, the empty heads
of wild oats bow to a breeze,
rip gut and foxtails cling

for traveling—the hills are blond
come June. With coming summer
sun, tender lilies bloom

well-after Easter
reaching for a short life
and the 100-degree sky.

Growing into horseback dreams
takes time and dedication for little girls,
pushing cattle where the feed can be

heavenly on the good years—a home
for heifers and their first calf—
we’ve watched her grow to be good help,

to hold her own over years
of pillowed nights imagining—all
come true right before our eyes.

                                                 for Allie

                                        It is time for us to kiss the earth again.
                                             – Robinson Jeffers (“Return”)

We have wandered far from the roots
of our sustenance, the bloom and fruit—
with rain the eager volunteers of stalk

and seed and the herds of harvesters
that circumnavigate uneven ground
and till tomorrow’s table full. We have

lost touch, lost taste, lost our senses
for living well, close to the smell of dirt
from whence we’ve come and will rest

in the end. Instead we let our minds’
appetite for the scandalous fill hungry heads
with acrimony and self-righteousness

to feed another uncivil war. It’s time
for us to stop—take the time to kiss
this earth dressed in her many splendors.

Quietly reading cattle
and one another,
prolonged moments
when words come too late
to be applicable—

no room for poetry,
no time to edit—
it is a dance instead,
a gentle rhythm
of man and beast

expressed privately,
a sixth sense
we take for granted
after a lifetime
sorting cattle.