Category Archives: Poems 2013

Do not count the souls that rest
upon your attentiveness, the pump
that failed that must be fixed
to fill the only trough for miles.
Hundreds wait in shadows
while cattle graze unknowing.

A dragonfly watches from the edge
of emptiness, woodpeckers attach
themselves to nearby trees—hawks
roost and rabbits check for leaks.
Do not count the souls
you never knew before.

All you need to know
is how it works. You can
jerry-rig a poem to hold water
with few tools, or fix it right
so it will last, but don’t count souls
come just to watch the dance.

We tend to keep the old ones close,
float their teeth, feed more hay,
measure strides from manger to water,

give them everything we think they need.
These great beasts with tender hides
we’ve held between our legs that we

no longer ride, we watch ourselves
getting older. How many will we
outlive trying to get it right?

No longer dust, this musty earth
wants to steam upon the breeze—
as good a day as any to let go.

Twenty-eight straight days
over a hundred degrees—
thunder rolls

after lightening cracks
upon the ridges
growing closer.

I grab a cigar
and a glass of red to celebrate
the change: a blanket of gray

flash flood alerts. I’m ready
with all the excuses
I’m going to need today.

When a young man’s luck is good
he tends to crow and take chances
while pretending to be invincible
that feels good, and so it goes.

When an old man’s luck is good
he is careful not to offend the gods,
whoever and wherever they are
living everywhere he looks.

It takes time and lots of luck
to get older, to survive nature
and the nature of others who
leave little room to chance.

You must look closely
from the corners of your eyes
to read wild minds
unsure of who you are
and why you stopped.

Do not stare,
do not let fear take hold.
Relax. Do not wait
too long to speak.
Make your voice a song.

Under the gooseneck,
Cottontail, Ground Squirrel
and Quail share summer shade,
play cards and gossip
about the sunshine.

Flycatchers ride the ridges
of cattle backs
like a high Sierra
pack string
this side of the sunset.

God has already been here—
no bad guys,
no guilty parties
making a living
before you came along.

                         …pulling what counts wherever it goes.
                                   – William Stafford (“Troubleshooting”)

We coveted those perfect farms
that seemed to run themselves in the Fifties,
ripe fruit and colorful vegetables waiting

for another painting in a bowl? How we
dreamed of retreating to a quiet life
we could not afford. We had no time

to take chances on little brown birds
chasing through the brush and brambles,
to keep our company secret and private.

And yet, despite the din of all the time-saving
diversions, it makes a living in our garden
and waits for the sprinklers to come on.

I draw a leaf floating,
one of many in a light rain
of color that pools in circles
stirred by breezes
on lawns like Arlington

or click

to black and white
blue oaks wrapped in the first
upcanyon scent of the Pacific,
sheets of dry leather leaves
you can hear hit the ground

or click

to the sleek machine’s
sterile perfection, add accessories
to flawless logic
like jewelry to ideals
to imprint in my mind.

‘Click to toggle’,
computer talk—
I think I know
what it means.

Pine sap leaking from blazes leading
straight off a mountain of trees—
McKee’s cutoff from Bench Lake
to the South Fork of the Kings—
like the laments of old men
living longer than they planned.

There is nothing else to tell
the future, its time-saving
complications, its instant speed,
its youthful dreams headlong
into possibilities I’ll not know.
We led our horses down

the steep north slope, following
my father to this point in time.
All-night thunderstorm at Marion Lake,
huge rainbows, then over Cartridge
to Simpson Meadow dressed
in colored tube tents—Sierra Club, 1958.

Dad, Cut and Don—all gone,
I may have had the best of times
with them: places where there is
damn-little trail to follow,
but only lately taking time
to leave blazes of my own.

Occasional reflection
of a child’s forgotten face
from grammar school
holds for a moment,
finds a name that sounds
like sweet innocence,
like trust and honesty
as it should be—like it
was in the beginning, before
the reasonable temptations—
the good and bad accidents
we shaped like horseshoes
into luck, believing
in something else.

Outside, I am reminded
of myself: red chested
finches on the rail
singing lust songs,
the clutch and tumble
of eagles from clouds
in a spring blue sky—
of that urgency
that consumed me
to pace the barbed wire.

We were told
that animals had no souls
worth saving, could not
think or reason like humans
to resist the lewd downcanyon
winds that were to stir us
like savages around a fire—
yet they have their place
in the front row
of my box of mirrors.