Forecast dry, blond fuzz thin,
long black line of heifers camped,
necks bent to flakes of hay
at Halloween, it seems, like always.
Wood Ducks by the thousands
migrate to the base of the Sierras,
to Spanish Flats and the Live Oak
above the pond that waters cattle—
not room enough to float them all,
they come to harvest acorns.
Bleak weeks ahead, we grit our teeth.
Damn few poems hang on trees
shedding leaves, only crooked fingers
dripping crimson, Buckeyes beckoning.
drycrikjournal 