The stage is set with
few days between rains
in years between droughts—
green hills hang fire,
begin to breathe
before they flower.
Knee-deep white egrets
comb blades of grass,
step lightly slowly
as tree frogs gather
to rehearse
an all-night chorus.
In his Model A, Bill DeCarteret stopped by our branding yesterday along Dry Creek Road. His visit with Tim Loverin, owner/operator of the Cedar Grove Pack Station, and me was much too short. We’ll do it again soon.
Last two hundred years,
six days afire—forgotten
ash and sediment.
Purple clouds up canyon,
an armada approaching
white skies at dawn…
battleships burning pink,
fleet afire and fading
into a bluer sea.
The gods
abhor halters and stirrups, even a horse
blanket to protect our asses is forbidden.
– Jim Harrison (“Poet No. 7”)
Handful of mane, wrap
of hair gripped and entwined,
I plowed the pine duff on the Kern
with my chin loping back to the picket line,
bell mare clenched between my legs
when she shied.
A pigeon-toed bay,
my legs and heart
grew into.
A plucky kid
leading mules and people
over granite scree
to snowmelt meadows
framing heaven’s
blue-cloud reflection
I could have died
half-dozen times
were I not so close
to the hands of gods
and goddesses
that may have placed
a rattler in the corner of her eye
for entertainment.
for Bill DeCarteret
“Mountains, Mules and Memories”
Posted in Poems 2019
Tagged Bill DeCarteret, Jim Harrison, mountains, Mules and Memories", poetry
Burning twin Valley Oaks
gone dead in the drought,
undermined by the creek—
four-foot trunks
of smoking coals
two or three centuries old
stirred with the skid steer
three times a day
religiously
have left a hole
in my tangled world
across the creek
I cannot replace:
timelessness trapped
in mottled shadows
embracing me
each time I passed
beneath them.
* Really “DAY THREE”, (today is Saturday, not Sunday). Excused from Jury Duty, I lit the fire Thursday morning after Erik Avila pulled the trees out of the creek with an excavator for Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District on Wednesday.
The ranchy part of this common confusion for us is that we’re busy, we work at something everyday, doing pretty much what we want—no “hump days” with weekdays and weekends pretty much the same, we tend to lose track of what the name of today is. That’s my story and I’m stickin to it.
Facebook loading chutes,
peckerwood and pipe
from another time:
bob-tail horse trucks
tilting steep and slick
imperatives
that haven’t changed
when it rains
familiar profanities
from unclear skies.
I have outlived
their usefulness.
More low snow on Dry Creek last night, 0.27” of rain from a fast moving storm that has slowed or closed traffic on the Grapevine and Tehachapi this morning. Our hills have been too slick to gather with horses, so we’ve gone afoot the past two days so that we can brand next week.
Posted in Photographs
TV insanity,
old men posturing
Twitter and Facebook—
I expect the world
to make sense
like Shakespeare’s last act,
not of an age
but for all time.
My metaphors are wild
company, retreats
I might better know
in deep seclusion,
tracks to follow
and fill with form
to stand as proof
before me.
Like Slick Sweeney
packing a broomstick
to shoot his buck—
left horns and guts
intact, hide and flesh
looking back
to leap clean away
when he said bang.
(click)
