We kept relics in the garden
to remind us of the sentries at night
surrounding orchards of oranges
their fire-red caps lit,
smokestacks glowing, chugging
diesel to keep the freeze out.
A black cloud hung low
in the mornings over Exeter,
white diaphanous curtains gray,
suet under grammar school noses
to save the crop of gold
the town depended on in the old days.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry
Tagged Exeter, freeze, oranges, photography, poetry, smudge pots
All the old expressions whispered beneath my breath
suggest more than the multisyllabic references
fed to humanity hungry for the resonance of wisdom,
the slippery rhythm of a song to hang a hat on,
but too naïve, too misused, too untried to know
what we had to learn by hand. Most of the common
phrases gone with the passing-on of actual facts
no one yet living left to reiterate or forget.
So know-it-all I have become when whispers
venture as if to know with self-important volume,
as if my roar outweighs a worthier opinion.
Best keep my whispers to myself, the page
and call it poetry, best keep the conversations
with myself humorous, short and lasting.
May I say the world is sad,
despondent in my blue eyes
behind the wire-rimmed glass
reflecting the outside space
and green tree parts before me.
Thin hair short and gray
to match the beard
that hides some of my face
from the sun it’s become
allergic to ever since
absorbing Cylence
to control the flies on cattle,
my careless machismo
worn for thirty years.
We wear some mistakes
on the flesh, the rest reside
deep inside.
Corrals were different then,
fences sagged, gates dragged,
old chiefs gruff and crude—
and if related, so profane
that only eagles watched
from the tops of twin
Valley Oaks four foot thick.
My father brought his talk
as bait from the Bulge,
disconnected from command
for a week—and the high-headed
cows gathered by too many
wannabes out of the brush
and narrow canyons,
reason to increase his volume.
I learned the language early,
shared it with my town friends
on the grammar school playground.
SUMMER 2025
July mornings warm between the granite
and clay baked canyon walls that soon
in August will be too hot to work within
past 9 o’clock’s blazing sun when waterholes
and springs evaporate, leaving only bleached
moss blankets to cover the turtles and frogs.
California’s foothill news much the same
as 10,000 years ago before we came, July’s
truth no one can change—no executive orders
to distort or rescind, nor histories to rewrite.
No children to let die, no officials to blame.
No houses yet to plant in the San Joaquin.
SEPTMEBER 2025
September dew portends
an early fall, damp
upon the solar panels
gleams before dawn—
expectant heifers waddle
to water, more solitary
in their plodding,
bellies big as barrels,
to graze alone.
A Nuthatch at the water
from the garden misters
collected in an empty dish
but makes room for finches,
sparrows and twohees
fidgeting in line
while I drink coffee
and steal a forbidden smoke
one more time.
Photo: Allie Fox
It’s that time of year when the cows begin calving, and these two girls were in the bottom of a Ridenhour Canyon when Allie, her sister Katie and the two 1 year-old boys, Asher and Hayes, passed by on the way to check water in Paregien’s. Robbin and I have been checking the first and second calf heifers after they’re fed… and yes, we’re feeding hay too, having just increased the amount to keep up their strength before they calve. We have a few on the ground already, coyotes thick as fleas on a ground squirrel. It’s always exciting, and sometimes disappointing when you lose one.
Naturally, we love this time of year, especially now that the temperature is running in the 90s. It’s our beginning of the year.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calving, feeding, New Year, photography, Ridenhour Canyon
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