Monthly Archives: August 2022

GONE FISHING

                                       

 

                                       Poetry is its own prayer,

                                      The closest words come to will.

                                                 –  Amanda Gorman (“CORDAGE, or ATONEMENT”)

 

To untangle a knot of fishing line

you must begin with the hook—

work reason gently backwards.

 

Don’t pull tight but take a breath,

give time away and listen

to the words that swim by.

 

Free the mind to find itself

not coifed in sheep’s clothing

but wild as a wolf in the woods.

 

Watch the water riffle and eddy.

See rocks and cobbles talking

from an ever-changing streambed.

 

This is fishing.

This is poetry.

This is solace.

 

SERIOUS BUSINESS

 

Occasionally, I feel guilty.

I’ve killed so many

that I may allow

one to escape

my will to kill

 

before becoming numb

as machinery,

before squeezing

 

               the pellet gun

               the .22,

               the .223

               or the 17 HMR—

 

…like now as I write:

one breaking from

the dogs’ empty pens

with cheeks full

of puppy chow.

 

Little bastards,

I’ve fed tens of thousands

to our local wake of buzzards

waiting for the first report

of war in the canyon.

 

Falling off hillsides in hordes,

battalions of vermin

to strip tomatoes

green from the vine—

 

every sweet and juicy issue

from my darling Elberta,

our plump grapefruit

and leather-hided pomegranates

that will never spread

as jelly on toasted bread.

 

Serious business in a drought

to become an oasis

for the flea-infested

and their underpopulated

predators, but I’d like a day off.

 

First Calf 2022

In the feed grounds this morning (8/29/22), our first calf of the season with its mother (7052), posted here as part of our age and source verification program and to share with those following this blog. Due September 1st, there are several other cows pretty close up, so it’ll have a playmate soon. An Angus calf, no Wagyu this year.

How To Beat The Heat

 

What a delightful afternoon after work (8/19/22).  109 degrees at the ‘Sip and Dip’: Katy Fry, Allie & Shawn Fox with Robbin, Buster and Tessa. 

NATIVES

 

I look to the ridges for clarity,

for a sign of an approaching storm

gathering somewhere north—

 

trace silhouetted skeletons

of drought-killed oaks, branched

like Challenge Butter bucks.

 

As my eyes escape the first waft

of chaos and claustrophobe,

I leave my flesh to rest among

 

all the old cowmen with nothing to do

but watch the learning process

over and over again.

 

The Natives retreated to the hills,

but at the top of mountain peaks,

there’s no place left to go.

 

OUTDATED CULTURAL DEPICITONS

 

The B-Westerns’ barroom brawls

have spawned a herd of wannabes

with renewed gossip among the locals—

 

and every year someone dies

with too many horses powered

by alcohol.  And all the young wranglers

 

stay sensible, until they forget

the promises they made to themselves,

their wives and families.

 

A century and a half ago,

a horse knew his slow way home,

and if his rider fell off

 

it usually didn’t kill him.