Monthly Archives: August 2018

CARNIVAL

 

 

Adding sideshows since
business has picked-up,
more employment
for carnies and barkers.
We’re doing swell!

We have war games,
hammers cocked
on real bombs—
a geography lesson
all around the world

with money trails
crisscrossing oceans
to island laundromats
for you to follow if
you’re looking for truth.

We have every version
of the latest news—
manuscripts for sale
for first-time authors—
just fill-in the blanks.

Better than reality,
a thousand truths
to believe with heart
and mind for sale:
We’re doing swell!

 

STURGEON MOON

 

 

The earth’s reception
of the sun’s reflection
as august and austere art

beyond this world
and its petty politics,
its busy claustrophobe

and unscheduled urgencies
we must navigate
until it rises behind

Blue Oak silhouettes—
true enlightenment
for a prolonged moment.

 

FISHING

 

 

Day breaks into dreams of possibilities,
a thousand paths in new directions,
and yet we choose the proven route

under reconstruction. How we change
our ways and destinations depends
on pause and reflection, long moments

cast upstream, over and over again,
where the mind is free to be mesmerized
by the fly as it finds new currents home.

We dug worms for cane poles, watched
corks bob when I was a boy. It’s not
about the fish, but the fishing instead.

 

BORDERLINE BAD

 

 

We have fences places
no human’s been to since—
no bovine notices
grazing home

to friends and family
closer to good water and
the feed truck’s track
and us. To be understocked

makes good neighbors
best, barbed wire tangles
under fallen limbs
that will rot before

we ever remove them—
an old man’s economy
between energy and need
that native cows ensure.

 

FLEDGLING

 

 

Turned out of the nest
to make a fortune
on lizards, snakes

and bugs, he explores
the mossy troughs
and warm dirt tanks

for a dependable drink.
Cold clean drops
roll down his throat

as he tips his beak
to the mermaid bathing
motionless—much

to contemplate
and forget
at the ‘sip and dip’

for young eyes I envy
like kittens and puppies
yet to learn the truth.

 

THE CLIMATE OF CHANGE

 

 

On a cool day in hell
they’re sipping lemonade,
holding court, declaring
God to blame for their sins—

for imperfections of soul,
its hollow room filled
with mirrors of themselves
they took too seriously.

The angels rest uneasily
beside Max Parrish pools
looking down on the ground,
even the old cowmen on the ridge

look away from the wreck,
the collision of words, the cloud
of dust that obfuscates the truth
only time will settle.

How long can we be entertained
by delusion, the dissolution
of civility, of compassion
as the planet prepares

for the business of war—
already overstocked with corrals
of houses stacked upon
the fading fruited plains?

 

First-Calf Heifers

 

 

For regular followers accustomed to a short philosophical poem, I’ve been on a sabbatical from the blog for well-over a week, a vacation without one ounce of guilt for not writing or posting daily. All good. We’ve been busy on the ranch nevertheless, as we’ve begun to supplement our younger cows with hay and all our cows with protein licks as our first calves will be arriving in a couple of weeks.

We hauled the girls above to the pasture around our house yesterday, two-year old first-calf heifers due to calve in the middle of September. In years past, we would have driven them the two miles here through three different occupied pastures and across the road. We hauled 53 head instead, rather than risk any mix-ups with our neighbor’s steers. For whatever reason, the heifers were plumb silly, making yesterday one of my hardest loading experiences in fifty years.

Though we had hay laid out to the water trough to welcome them to their new digs, Robbin and I went out this morning to feed them again and to help them acclimate to the dry feed after having spent all summer on the irrigated pasture. Right now they’re lost, but have calmed down substantially since yesterday’s debacle.

I’m working on a longer poem for a documentary produced by the American Angus Association, having to change my style to fit what I perceive the film to be. Tough sledding as I keep adding notions and ideas to the piece. Meanwhile, I’ve been somewhat satisfied with shorter pieces scratched out in the evenings like:

 

                                             NAMES

                                             From kid
                                                  to boy
                                                  to son
                                                  to man
                                                  to pard
                                                  to dude
                                                  to bud
                                                  to boss
                                                  to SOB,
                                             I know my name.

 

Finally

 

 

Clear skies after three weeks of smoke trapped in the San Joaquin Valley from the Ferguson Fire near Yosemite, one of seventeen fires being fought in California in 100+ degree temperatures. Unfortunately, the winds that cleared the Valley also fed the fires. The Mendocino Complex, the Ranch Fire and the River Fire, nearly doubled in size over the weekend, 266,000 acres that is only 33% contained and has become the fourth largest in State history.

Overlooked by the pundits and politicians are the lasting impacts of our four-year drought (2013-2016) that will provide fuel for years to come. But for the moment, blue skies.

 

EASY EXITS

 

 

Names and faces visit in foggy times
pausing on the edge of placid dreams
where the Muses come to bathe

in the half-light—long lost characters
who’ve grown old or shed the weight of flesh
to move more freely now towards clarity,

ephemeral moments without words,
but with quiet wonderment instead
reflected in our eyes. There may be

another plane, another row of seats
above to watch the show with easy
exits when the drama gets too thick,

when hateful hearts want war. I hope so.
It would be hell to have to witness
the slow disambiguation of the future.