No lone warriors left on weary ponies,
we gather at the edge of the West subdued
and yield to the fleeting moment beyond
our reach or reason—to be washed,
wave after wave, with our fears away.
All the people now in the picture—
I could have cropped the photo
to thirty-thousand yesteryears ago,
or by much shorter measure dialed it
to a certain future none will see.
Our hair is gray.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry
Tagged Cambria, Moonstone Beach, photography, poetry, Sea Chest Oyster Bar
All the places
I worked and played
too hard
are wearing on me
for this moment
I have trailed
with discarded rhymes
and poetry
even I don’t quite
understand
why I had to kiss
the wild so deeply,
why I had to walk
the fence
and dream beyond
the barbed wire.
Posted in Deck Poems, Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged age, photography, poetry
Occasionally, neighbors become good friends,
and so it’s been with Steve and Jody Fuller, Robbin and I.
I am going to read a short poem that I wrote for them
when my mother was dying in the hospital back in 2010.
LAST NIGHT’S LEFTOVERS
We pray for heart attacks, Mack trucks and lightening
as our way out, trading tales of die-hard mothers
like rattlesnake stories, each triggering another –
pouring wine with whiskey rants to laugh
at the sad truth we can’t improve, can’t make easier,
can’t change, but in ourselves. Out of the rain,
my great bay horse, a bag of bones at thirty,
paws the gate in the barn for more grain – an indignant
impatience I trained for years, my mother’s hands
in mine again. It’s rained five days straight,
blew the barn down, blew a tire in a rockslide,
got a ticket parked too long at the hospital,
and we look up into the gray wanting to escape
town and traffic, find home and recuperate
with neighbors and last night’s leftovers.
– for Steve & Jody
Steve left his mark on the hearts of us all.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2010, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, photography, poetry
Yesterday’s rain
runs in rivulets
towards the creek
across the shoulder
of the road
and growing traffic—
Pond Turtle shell
glistening still
with all the wild
totems we lay claim to
in our joint accounts.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, photography, poetry, POND TURTLE, rain, TOTEMS
Mud from head to toe
before the bus to school,
how could I know
I’d never bring it home—
never be the hero
of black and white westerns.
But a lifetime chasing rainbows
has been enough
without the pot of gold.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, photography, poetry, rain, rainbows, weather
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