The day unfolds in the black:
another circle of hay and water,
cows and bulls, a dusty track
on worn terrain now dreaming
on a cool, downcanyon draft
of bluster and damp—of drinking
dark clouds until the dust is mud.
Out of the shadows, the wild steps
lightly, all sharing the same dream
rising from the dry, dry earth.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Great Western Divide, Kaweah, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry, rain, water, weather
Within petals frayed,
the seeds—small devices
enduring despite us.
Purple Fairy Lantern, Purple Globelily, Calochortus amoenus
The pace in California has been urgent
since the Gold Rush dream of short-cuts
to the unending, ubiquitous rolls of buzzing
snare drums announcing another parade
down Easy Street that everyone in and out
of state still believes is far better than
pastoral quietude, the calm river spread
with its ripple-less glass reflection of
mountain peaks that hang upside-down
in timeless skies, we rush instead to wait
in lines going nowhere fast—our contagious
fever we cannot cure with more of the same.
Cucumber
hiding beneath the tendrils
until too big to pickle.
what was done in blindness,
loving what I cannot save.
– Wendell Berry (“To My Children, Fearing For Them”)
No bluecoats, no cavalry trumpeting,
no loping long line of sabers flashing
to rescue what was commonplace before
we put ourselves first, drank the water,
pumped the earth dry, our children
abandoned to a new order in time
of scrutiny and enforcement. We believed
in magic, but their emptiness is mine—
a greater void than I can fill with poetry.
Posted in Poems 2014
Tagged photographs, poetry, water, weekly-photo-challenge, Wendell Berry
We are connected
in red shattered skies—
fractured dawns from blackest nights.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Dry Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, red sky, weekly-photo-challenge
First-calf heifers, tired from the drive
over hill and dale across the creek
to the corrals, sorted and fly sprayed
before their new home plied with alfalfa,
maternity wards bare as human baby’s derrière
in the flats, but with hair yet on the hillsides—
and a few old girls to show them how-in-hell
to get there. Out from under sycamores,
they work the shadow of the ridge in bunches,
stop and look, a few paces at a time,
inspecting distances, not knowing yet
how far they’ll have to go to stay here.
…and maybe, just maybe she
comes by a different route,
out of the south with moisture
early. I have felt her breath
in the shade of evening
on my face, harbingers
that teeter on imagination
long enough to become
themselves, develop within
the fading light. All this
imagining excites the flesh
and hair. As shadows stretch
between half-naked oaks
on these sepia hillsides—
we start to color dreams.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry, weather
No telling the tune
that’s dressed to kill
to pass the hat, to fill the till.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Anisocoma acaulis, Dry Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, Scalebud, weekly-photo-challenge, wildflowers
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