Not too old to hunt,
it is my eyes that crave
the grace of wild things,
that tell the boy inside
to take another look,
focus while he can.
I have tracked, squeezed
the trigger, gutted, skinned
and hung the flesh
over flames, told the stories
within these mountains
where I became a man
who hunts for pleasure,
for sign each day—
for what he’s never seen.
for Matt St. Martin
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015
Supermoon, June 23, 2013
What gift of light
have I to offer
dark mornings,
the coyote’s howl,
of stars reflecting suns
above the ridgeline
of her body sleeping,
breathing beside us
in this canyon apart
from the news
of mortal men
and women staged
to sell consumption
and wealth
to the enslaved—
before I fail
to be so generous
in the daylight?
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, Supermoon
Hollow pipe songs at first light
pierce the darkness, own the dawn
with answered calls from oak trees
and granite piles of fractured rock
balanced on the edge of time
frozen around me. Early morning
solos grow into a chorus of chants
on the other side of the door,
a primitive awakening to greet me,
to ignore my circle of chores.
We’ve become part of the landscape
they return to, generations born
near cattle, horses and water troughs.
After these dry years, a colony—
a reunion of Roadrunners nesting.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged birds, Blue Oak, Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, roadrunner, water, weather, wildlife
Ithuriel’s Spear Triteleia laxa – March 18, 2015
When the angel’s touch
spills with long-stemmed purple blooms,
no room for deceit.
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged Dry Creek, flower-friday, haiku, Ithuriel's Spear, photographs, poetry, Triteleia laxa, wildflowers
Ithuriel’s Spear Triteleia laxa – March 18, 2015
We jump into spring
without looking or thinking,
craving wild nectar.
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, haiku, Ithuriel's Spear, photographs, poetry, Triteleia laxa, wildflowers
Pretty Face, Triteleia ixioides – April 11, 2014
Steep east slope damp,
tall green grass slick,
pale Pretty Faces hold their grins
beneath Buckeyes and Live Oaks—
heavy thatch of fallen limbs
holds the old fence down,
shelters a rat’s nest.
Nature has been winning
since I was here last
with the chain saw,
packing posts afoot
and splicing rusty wire
to keep cattle straight—
pretending to be in charge.
I see my mark: old cuts
with decomposing rings.
Not near as near
as in my mind—
four years since the low snows,
ten more for this six-inch growth.
Steep east slope damp,
tall green grass slick,
pale Pretty Faces hold their grins
beneath Buckeyes and Live Oaks.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged brushing, Buckeyes, fixing fence, Greasy Creek, Live Oaks, photographs, poetry, Pretty Faces, weather, wildflowers
Beneath the blankets
of fuzzy bloom, arms and legs
serve dinner for two.
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged Crane Fly, haiku, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry, weather, wildflowers, wildlife
Now in the quiet I stand
and look at her a long time, glad
to have recovered what is lost
in the exchange of something for money.
– Wendell Berry (“The Sorrel Filly”)
Looming closer, a swirling darkness just beyond
the thought of summer’s water that is not
frozen deep in the Sierras to feed our rivers
and canyon leaks—of brittle fall and cattle
gathered at an empty trough. The creek dries back
and sinks in March, lifted to new canopies
of sycamores dressing. Skeletons of old oaks
stand out between greening survivors, some
wearing only clumps of yellow mistletoe
hanging like reasons, raisons—like raisins
clinging to a leafless vine. Each season
spins the same dry song, yet we find our place,
harmonize and sing along, lifted like precious
moisture to tender leaves, a basic ascension not
available in the big box stores, unrecorded
in the history of our presence. This may be
the new normal for old people—that daze
of amazement we have been working towards.
Posted in Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged "The Sorrel Filly", Blue Oak, cattle, Drought, Dry Creek, Kaweah, Kaweah River, poetry, rain, San Joaquin Valley, water, weather, Wendell Berry
Two centuries of women
gone beyond
healing and grinding,
needing shade
away from men—
dead Live Oak place
to roost for years,
our pair of crows
make familiar
flutters of love
balanced on a branch,
know one another’s
every feather,
preen and quiver
with how it feels
into the gloaming
afterwards.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged birds, crow lovers, crows, Kaweah, Live Oak, photographs, poetry, wildlife, Yokuts
Leftover cedar
logs from the house
twenty-five years ago
paid for
frame a loamy mix
of decomposing granite and clay
with horse manure
stirred and piled
fine as sand
three years fluffed
with the skid steer
and fill what could be
a feeder along the fence—
a sixty-foot trough
for bare root raspberries
blackberries
border of red onions
come summer
and it not yet spring.
Like finches building nests
we enlarge the garden
in two half-days,
tend to instincts
warm air brings
and flesh demands
like plowing fingers
in fresh-worked dirt.
We lift another glass
and see colored fruit
years from here
paid-for.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged birds, blackberry, Dry Creek, garden, photographs, poetry, raspberry, red onions, weather, weekly-photo-challenge
drycrikjournal 