Author Archives: John

BLACK INK

Posted on February 18, 2016 | 5 comments

 

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Crown on ice
waiting for a rain
in a water glass

for me and this
yellow pad
to storm black ink,

prolong spring
with fresh metaphors
for resilience.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

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SCORPIONWEED

Posted on February 17, 2016 | 2 comments

 

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Delicate bloom unfurling early
to lower angles of a warmer sun
that has drawn the snakes out

into a tall forest of green grass.
The girls spray weeds around
the barns, gates and corrals,

clearing summer’s dry hideouts
where we will travel with work
on our minds—small firebreaks

for the house. We have grown
too old for curled surprises, for
adrenaline leaps that leave us crippled

instead of snakebit. Ingrained routine
that comes with bloom before
weeds go to seed, we look ahead

for some small advantage
in a world we can improve
for those who work closest to us.

 

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FEBRUARY SPRING

Posted on February 16, 2016 | Leave a comment

 

February 13, 2016

Common Brodiaea, February 13, 2016

 

Crayons in a child’s hands,
spring is eager to scribble color
upon a greening page,

blue skies without the gray
curlicue cloud-loads of rain—
or like an old woman wise

with too many pots on the fire,
hurried in aromatic steams
to feed us all at once

before summer takes over
our lives. Like cattle pausing
at the gate after trailing flakes

of hay, we are suspicious,
we are afraid supper’s over
before spring has been served

by our idle consideration
that swims in awe of a miracle
we crave the time to digest.

 

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Valentine’s Day Branding

Posted on February 15, 2016 | 6 comments

 

 

No roses, no chocolates, we left Dry Creek early to make the 45 minute trek to Mankin Flat to brand Craig Ainley’s calves. We were in and out of the clouds all day long and made it off the hill just before dark. Robbin manned the ‘point and shoot’ on the way up and between vaccinations. Fine calves with the fine company of neighbors, but needless to say, no one went to town for a romantic dinner.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

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California Jewelflower Caulanthus californicus

Posted on February 14, 2016 | 2 comments

 

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Endangered Species Recovery Program

While gathering to brand last week, the girls and I noticed a wildflower we’ve never seen before. Identified from Calflora photos this morning, I learned that the California Jewelflower is listed by USA and California as ‘Rare and Endangered’. No sighting recorded before in this part of Tulare County. One must assume that that the seeds have been banked for years until our current weather conditions germinated them.

 

HOLD THE PHONE: misidentified, according to the Jepson manual. Jagged leaves and bristly hair on stems = Caulanthus coulteri, neither rare or endangered, but new to us.

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FROM THE HEART

Posted on February 14, 2016 | 5 comments

 

Valentine

 

Sonnets scribed throughout the ages
& verses penned on crumpled pages
declare the vagaries of the heart—
but we who write, how do we start
to shape those things into a line?
Could Robbin be my Valentine?

A catch-all, cure-all phrase at best,
a store-bought, hard-fought way to test
not only revenue from emotion,
or pocket change to renew devotion—
but a day          for shy to offer sign,
ask: would you be my Valentine?

“What the hell’s it mean?” I pray.
Does it include what I want to say?
Or imitate the horndog’s sound,
or a spot for dreams to pulse and pound
or become a word to brand as “mine”?
“Now baby you’re my Valentine?”

Or a poet’s time to wax eternal
grace angelic drawn to abnormal
metamorphic gross proportions,
or worse yet, shallow contortions
comfort claims to be divine—
who’d really want a Valentine?

Yet through it all, you have acquired
my great respect. I have admired
the human being I know as you,
I know as nothing less than true—
& here I am at the bottom line:
would you be my Valentine?

 

 

I found this card in its original envelope on my desk this morning, postmarked February 13, 1995. Good friends for several years, I took a chance to declare an interest beyond friendship that Robbin confesses unsettled her at the time. Instead of a hallmark, it reads: ‘HOMEMADE IN A HELLUVA HURRY’.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, ROBBIN!!

 

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Great Basin Revisited

Posted on February 13, 2016 | 5 comments

 

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Robbin and I have been crossing the Great Basin from Tonopah to Carlin in January for twenty years, choosing the longer route to Elko instead of I-99 towards Sacramento congestion and Donner Pass. Once known as the World’s Loneliest Highway, going home we met only a couple of vehicles on Highway 278 towards Eureka, Monday morning February 1st, after Sunday’s storm.

Twenty years ago, everyone waved a passing hello when meeting a vehicle on these back roads, but the habit seems to have waned in the past few years. I never fail to wonder about the first wagon crossings, the weeks it took to overcome this high desert expanse, the people, their courage and endurance, as they made the trek. How many of us today would have done as well, invested the patience and dedication to get to a place, presumably California, that they’d never seen?

 

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Posted in Elko, Photographs, Ranch Journal

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THIS SIDE

Posted on February 12, 2016 | 5 comments

 

Our hills are turning,
lost the iridescence
that made us squint at dawn,

to just plain green—emerald
clumps of something yet
to bloom as poppies burn

holes in slopes, spreading fire
trimmed in ash-white skiffs
of popcorn flowers

on the steep emptying
into the branding pen
with big bawling calves.

Warm, ten days after
a two-inch rain, old eyes
detect the dry, see

faint yellowing
and don’t believe
in perfect springs,

don’t believe in perfect
anything, this side
of a four-year drought.

 

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Posted in Poems 2016

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Early Poppies

Posted on February 11, 2016 | 5 comments

 

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After four days in the 70s, 10 degrees above average, the wildflowers are popping everywhere. These across the creek from the house may be only the beginning, white popcorn flowers following suit. Stay tuned.

 

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February 10, 2016

Posted on February 10, 2016 | 1 comment

 

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Temperatures in the single digits, we left blowing snow outside Tonopah a week ago in Nevada’s Great Basin. Since we have gathered our last bunch of cows and calves to brand this morning to a forecast high of 76°. Here the hillsides are green, spattered with early patches of golden poppies and fiddleneck, as white popcorn flowers begin to creep up the lower slopes. The visual and mental contrasts from Elko to Dry Creek are startling, two different worlds either side of the Great Western Divide within a week’s time.

 

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Posted in Elko, Ranch Journal

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