We begin to gather
all the good news
showered upon us
from the sky,
harvest the grass
in the flesh of calves,
and like every year
we will weigh them,
measure our good fortune
with a number
to judge a season by.
We will turn the cows out
back to grass, back to homes
they’ve made on ground
good for little else
but wildlife—four-month
vacation with the girls
gossiping in the shade
without bulls
or nagging children
to disturb them.
Not a bad life
when it rains.
Cultivating a native life,
we pause for totems,
let them tell us
what they think—
who they are.
Some count on us
to stir the grass
and follow,
and some to listen
when we drink
coffee or wine
outside.
Claiming the roost
of loving crow mates,
a Golden Eagle lights
for a closer look at us—
and we are blessed.
Finding his feather
left ahead,
we believe
in something
more common
of the wild,
of talismans
from moments
we never forget
and hope to leave
as much.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Golden Eagle, photography, poetry, TALISMANS, TOTEMS
Photo: Terri Drewry
In a world tall with grasses,
wild oats and rosy thatches
of dry filaree, we seldom see
our feet upon the earth.
In frequented places
like water troughs and barns,
like vegetable gardens
saving trips to town,
we are prejudiced—
react without a thought
against a race of snakes
that want no trouble
to claim the space
in which we travel
with a shovel.
for Terri
At their feet, I must leave home—
the house, the canyon, to see them.
At the overpass between Exeter
and Visalia, when at cloudy dawn
they became my mother’s rumpled
bedclothes as she courted death,
the Sierras cloaked in a gossamer mist
that embraced me. Or just south
of Lemon Cove, up the Kaweah’s long,
open throat, sharp-toothed peaks
of granite scree reach for the sky,
changing moods in every light.
A man must have mountains
to shed the nonsense to get to—
a distant and steep ascent
for the spirit, soul and flesh—
a place safe to wander fire to fire,
star to star, to drink from snowmelt.
Wide arms open, they welcome me
as I come home from town
to lay down at their wrinkled feet.
Long stiff with the sweat of years,
I see myself beneath its dust, retired
from the common ignorance of haste.
All the timed events, all the wild cattle
made by the chase are scars etched
in fragile leather, some in my brain
as sweet memories of riding high,
shoulder to shoulder in the gather
of good men shaped by this landscape
that will outlast us in the end. Too soon
old, they say, too late wise, I could
always have taken better care of time,
thrown away the watches and clocks
and invested it in the real observation
of other living things—even the smallest
of which has a mission to teach us
the hard way. And what I fail to see—
this slow creak of bones will illuminate.
Muggy morning beneath a raft of clouds
docked against the Sierras steals molecules
of oxygen beside the last hole dug for granddad’s
gravel that now traps tailwater from the pasture
in the summer, its dark, stagnant pool teams
with amoeba and paramecium, a fermenting
stench swum only by cormorants and mud hens.
Sweet fragrance on a gust startles my senses
to search the dry grass for color, tree limbs
for blossoms from willow to sycamore,
blackberry to cottonwood, but none in flower
before the forecast Mother’s Day thunderstorms.
Perfumed tendrils cling like Christmas lights
from branches and I am drenched, taste damp
sweetness as I become wild grapes in bloom.
Everyone is old or fat
like feed bunk cattle
sorted to a pen to wait
for the magic of machines
to screen the heart—
the pump and pipelines
to mind and flesh.
In the 60s I was sure
I’d never see thirty,
made no plans past the Draft
on the other side of tomorrow.
The army trained her
for Desert Storm
right out of high school.
She shaves my chest,
connects the wires.
Knees squeak,
feet clop,
fast at first,
slow to find
a longer stride
on the treadmill.
From the sidelines,
a new team on the field
to keep the machinery
running a little longer,
another election to survive
like all the rest.
I drive home lightheaded,
endorphins mixed
with a muggy sky,
chance of thunderstorms
and fire, now that we have grass—
wild oats over my head.
No straight line,
the road to here
ricocheted with heart,
a flush of passion
left at every curve
I cannot measure,
barely remember
as reducing stress.
Apparently I’m taking a break from daily blogging, and frankly, it feels good. We’re in maintenance mode, getting our equipment serviced and repaired before we begin weaning some nice calves this year. The market is off by a third from last year, nearly a dollar/pound, and we won’t have as many as calves to sell as before the drought, our cow herd down by 40%. We’ll see some red ink this season.
The good news is that we have lots of grass that ought to carry us through until fall. We also have some awfully nice replacement heifers that pre-checked well, bred to Wagyu bulls, as we begin our rebuilding process. At 18 months they averaged 1100 pounds, due to calve in mid-September.
More than likely posts will be sporadic for awhile.
In the cattails, long leaves
like a thatch of swords
after a war, hem the water in—
veil the mud hens putzing
close to shore where bullfrogs
freeze in the sun
waiting for something good
to come along this irrigation pond
trying to go wild. I have come
to love their god-awful birdsong
like rusty hinges on a pipe gate
yodeling in the tight places,
musical cascades turned loose
to lyrics I still don’t understand.
I say I think they’re courting
because its spring, because
you and I have stopped
to watch them sing.
Bright color in the thin shade
of dry casualties: proud skeletons
of fathers and grandfathers,
generations of Blue Oaks standing
stoically against the sky, against
time as the earth comes alive.
Each silent prayer is a short nod
in passing—too many decomposing
monuments for long eulogies
no one will remember—
we dance past death
as the last obstacle to life.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Blue Oaks, Drought, photography, poetry
