Monthly Archives: December 2024

SUNDAY

Posted on December 30, 2024 by | 1 comment 


Light rain like fog
gray in the canyon
closes the world away—

privacy to contemplate
the prolonged moment
that asks no questions

of the no one
you have become
among the mountains.

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DRY CRIK CRAWL

Posted on December 27, 2024 by | 6 comments 

Gabe Arroyo would make his rounds
like a jovial Santa at Christmas
with a pickup load of honey and Patron

on the ranches where he kept his hives
for the winter—have an early morning toast
to the New Year:

	1 generous shot of Tequilla
	2 shots of fresh-squeezed orange juice
	in a glass of pomegranate nectar

leftover from Robbin’s jelly. He’d get a jar 
and we’d have another round or so 
his son-in-law could drive him home.

Gabe’s gone, but we make merry
with his holiday spirit
as if he were still here.

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SOLSTICE 2024

Posted on December 22, 2024 by | 2 comments 

Last year’s fine hair,
dry and hollow-stemmed
screens renewed green

sheltered in rocks
that once were one
mind, one set of eyes

to record the wild cycle
of new roots from old
seeds of life — hope

and grace apart
from the rubble 
of mankind.


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FREE LABOR

Posted on December 21, 2024 by | 3 comments 

First rain
the gophers clean their houses,
stack tailings high

where the Great Blues wait,
stand like statues,
like soldiers across the pasture

for the slightest movement
of well-worked mounds
to stab a meal—then toss it up,

catch open-beaked
and let it slide
down a snaky neck.

My father loved them,
loved the fact
they were working for him.

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LITTLE FIRES

Posted on December 14, 2024 by | Leave a comment 

Beyond these Chinese solar lights, 
wide tracts of black 
beneath the storm front

that shrouds the mountains, 
our cows and calves
curled upon the green.

Tiny plastic suns and moons 
charged with yesterday’s sunshine

                defy the night, 
                defy the news,
                defy the wolves

                always circling
                around our fire.

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Image

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

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Posted on December 14, 2024 by in Photographs, Ranch Journal

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SYCAMORE GIRLS

Posted on December 12, 2024 by | 1 comment 

They did not care when 
Sir Francis Drake claimed them 
for the Queen, or when the Spanish

held and lost them
to the Mexicans
and their vaqueros—

they did not care
when Bequettes brought
the first Devins in

to shade beneath their canopies
along the creek—
they did not care.

Long white limbs, 
they will dance for anyone
once they lose their leaves.

                 *	*	*	*

The Sycamore Alluvial Woodland on Dry Creek is the third largest in the world and the largest in the Sierra Nevada Ecoregion.

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DECEMBER SYCAMORES

Posted on December 11, 2024 by | 1 comment 


                A little rain,
                a little green,
                a little cold

short of a December freeze

	        my girls dress
	        in fiery colors
	        along the creek trickling 

before winter’s strip-tease:
long limbs reaching
from the clothes at their feet.

Some trees have drunk
more than they can hold,
dropping limbs on fences—

but nimble and sylphlike,
they have shown a millennium 
a glimpse of sensual grace.



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