The black heifers gather to me
thinking hay, early training
if they make the cut today.
Ultrasound, much less invasive
than palpation, long arm searching
for an embryo to make the cowherd—
replacements for the old girls who
will head to town with their empty sisters.
They crowd around me as if I’m God.
Posted in poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged gathering cattle, poetry, processing cattle, Replacement Heifers
Rain nine days away, they say—those prognosticators.
95 degrees third week in March after a month of dry
as the grass on south and west sloping faces
goes to seed next year’s grazing—or so we hope.
Lifetime wagers on the weather,
and gambles on the market for hay and cattle,
we pray that politicians don’t impede our subsistence
to garner more attention—control and votes like always.
We are the pawns in this equation, farmers, shepherds
of this world, tracing dawns along the ridgelines
chasing seasons for generations—filling empty plates
with much more than what most people see.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2026, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, farmers, government, markets, photography, poetry, shepherds, weather
My mother’s favorite,
first of the season,
a family in the same bed
across the creek all these years,
she mentioned fondly
when I was a boy.
Photo: March 24, 2009
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2026, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Baby Blue Eyes, bed, family, wilflowers
The liars punishment is not in the least that he is
not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
- George Bernard ShawWe look to the gods we know
for retribution, the short proverbs
our long lives have proven true
as we await once certain consequences
yet concerned about our absent deities,
afraid that verbal substitutes like
‘taking care of number one’
becomes the mantra,
becomes the drum
that humanity has learned to march to.
Look away from the circus fools
‘lest we give them credence.
On the dark side of the Blood Moon
eclipsed by the shadow of the Earth,
who knows what’s brewing,
an alien bivouac in the tabloids—
all the government secret rendez-vous
with who knows whom or who
is calling the shots, the ICBMs
and loaded drones to kickoff
World War III, a real diversion
from the truth that may not matter—
a puff of smoke to the galaxies,
nothing for the rest us.
drycrikjournal 