Any man can be a star
when the ground is hard
and short of feed—
and when the crowd
clambers for relief,
any man can be a god
in certain quarters
if he can load a truck
with good alfalfa hay.
Yet the compassionate man
loathes the burden,
despises his inadequacy
to make Nature rain.
Any man can be a star,
but she’s in charge.
A deep dark brown upon well-worn ground,
the luster of acorns ripe for consumption
litter the roadway, the steep dirt trail
to cows and calves expecting hay or rain.
How the oaks fed us all, once upon a time,
ground and leached into a meal—filling
the bellies of bear and deer, or crushed
beneath a wheel for quail, or swallowed
whole by Band-tailed Pigeons and Wood Ducks.
At maturity, a forgotten crop awaits but few
harvesters, a steady dwindling of wild souls
that owned this space and lived well-enough
to prosper generations. What seed have we
to leave, now that we have changed the world—
what truths have we left to tell our children?
drycrikjournal 