Category Archives: Poems 2012

Somehow, we’ve lost it—
farmed-out the feeling
to new immigrants
and the less fortunate
at minimum wage, or to
more eager hands overseas.

We have forgotten that
we came from the fields
before horsepower spit fire,
and from the characters
bent dawn ‘til dusk
to get the harvest in—

all the monotonous
that fed the livestock
and themselves, back
when calloused hands
moved on their own
and our minds ran free.

Some get along
better than others
pressed into feedlots,
onto the highways
and into trucks—

they seem to adjust
to more in less space,
drawn closer
into tighter communities:
hot breath and smells

of food and waste.
Some know no better,
always raised on hay
and grain, and wait
in lines to be fed.

And some get along
better than others
left mostly alone
with the real work—
feeding themselves.

Overnight, an iridescent, lime green
overwhelms hillsides and canyons
with tender leaves, feathers flushed
upon the gnarled limbs and boney twigs

of Blue Oaks pulsing with spring—
with life reborn, fresh as garden salads,
tropical pockets of overlapping greens
where armies of gray skeletons stood

anchored in the hard clay and granite
with centuries of faith in a rain.
Overnight, we are saved—believers
in storms from heaven, once again.

I admire the quest of mathematics
its one right answer to fit every occasion,
its audacity to forecast the future
with percentages, like the weather,
but question its utility when predicting
human nature in its race with science.

One might hope we regress to spurn
speed and comfort their diversions,
make each step count for something
solid, as each immeasurable moment
takes the shape of living truth—always
starting or finishing for someone.

They have lived here,
come evenings to listen
to our cocktail conversations
from the water trough and well—
distant silhouettes leaning
like lovers on the pipe rail,
totems we have mistaken
for ravens for years, until
their closer inspection:

lifting off at near dark,
he in the lead, feathers
shining blacker than night,
and she, grayer, trailing
for a closer look
at the two of us
watching this gesture
and wondering.

They are in love
atop the skeleton
of the once Live Oak
growing out of the knoll
when women came
for healing—upon
the highest branch,
she preens his back
                with her beak,
nuzzles his shiny breast
                with her head
as he crows—moans
                Caw-wee-ahh.

March 18, 2012

We stay busy and believe
in rain to save the grass—

                 if we work hard,
                 keep our fences up
                 and cattle home.

Only the native and naïve
keep these gods pleased,

                 investing lifetimes
                 without contracts
                 or guarantees.

We know no better,
no other way for us all

                 to stay alive—
                 and still believe
                 rain will survive.

Looking away from the fire:

                    irons at rest among coals
                    in a pocket fallen forward
                    from limb wood licked,
                    consumed by colored veils
                    of dancing flames
                    between calves, hoots
                    and loops, stretched,
                    rolled and released—
                    we see they find their way
                    without us, despite us,
                    mothers waiting at the gate.

Near hawks atop leafless oaks
watch as if we weren’t here, bored
with the horse and human intrusion,
from the lifeless trucks and trailers
claiming space for the moment,
shadowing ground and grass—
scattered like discarded toys.

Knotted trunk, creek bank sycamore,
has lost several centuries of limbs
and seen more in its own failed reach,
enduring droughts and floods,
than in our short stretch of time.

This pattern we can’t ignore—this
constant readjustment of elements
that tests the best of human natures.

It is the rural way, the hands-on explanation
of work, of time invested or squandered
in pursuit of peace for a fleeting moment—
if only an adieu to the bone-weary gloaming

                      as she pulls her covers up,
                      as the dogs make their circle
                      of scent posts, and as the cows
                      call their calves together

to welcome darkness. A separate species
of farm and range, of fence and tree row,
of the harvest, track and furrow following
each season of the sun for the life of the soil,

for our time on this earth, we speak
the universal sign of gestures and looks,
in secret code that unlocks local sayings,
the un-riddled truisms that begin and end

the legends that muddled here before us,
and found their way to offer progeny:
an ever-changing strain of human beings
that listens for the hymns of the old ways.

This is our church, our adaptable Divinity
that transcends all things to expose grace
to a slowing metronome plodding home—
a prolonged rapture towards the end of days.

Early March, and she toys with us—
checks-in to make sure we wait
patiently, perhaps even pray

for her attention as she stampedes
across town, destruction in her wake.
We are helpless only to watch,

rooted to this ground ignored,
but for light kisses, promises
blown on her way out the door.

We know her well, intimately—
sustaining every dream and more,
believing in her fickle fidelity,

her wild extremes we have endured
for lifetimes. Yet, we begin again
to learn our place in this relationship.

The Spotted Towhees find last year’s leaves
to stir and kick around with the kind of blind
intensity of natives, as if they’ve always lived

here scratching beneath the outdoor chairs—
moved-in as if they owned this place before us
and whatever other square inch they may occupy,

yet so briefly that no one objects, not even
the cats, having their sneak and leap already
fixed and gauged as clumsy and rudimentary.

Even the sleepy dog tilts his head towards
these busy interlopers. How could we ignore
these squatters, these colorful immigrants?

OregonLive.com
                                           courtesy of Rene Eisenbart, The Oregonian