Category Archives: Poems 2015

LIKE CATTLE

February 15, 2015

February 15, 2015

 

                         the green growth the mind takes
                         from the pastures in March;

                              – Wendell Berry (“Goods”)

Like cattle filling bellies
becoming whole to bloom,
resting early in the shade of limbs
awaiting leaves, the pastures pulse
with goodness for as far as I can see.

How spring seemed so much longer
when I was a boy, the world wider
as the hills came alive, breathing
easily as apparitions danced
upon the green between rains.

And it becomes us to overwhelm
all else—renewed proof and hope
for mankind—pattern and possibility
yet on this earth that we absorb
like grass. And we feed upon it.

 

SMALL TOWNS

 

There is no hiding within
rural communities, the gossip hubs
of small towns team with news

at the doughnut shop, the feed store
trading in common tragedies:
DUIs, divorces, suicides.

We learn to live with guilt, grab
hold to stand beside the twisted
truth of being human, wear

the shame of each unpolished flaw
to endure self-inflicted tortures
until we escape this flesh.

No one is anonymous, no passing
face on the street. But sometimes
all the imperfections bloom

beyond the anguish, each petal
turned skyward to drink up the sun
and rain—and we are whole

for moments that no one has words
to describe, or time to take
to indulge in such nonsense.

 

WILD HYACINTH

Wild Hyacinth (Dichelostemma capitatum)    - February 16, 2015

Wild Hyacinth (Dichelostemma capitatum)
February 16, 2015

 

No perfect flower,
yet we hunger for beauty
greater than nature.

 

EARLY SPRING

Goldfields - February 16, 2015

Goldfields – February 16, 2015

 

Warm hillsides melting
the Ides of February
in puddles of gold.

 

 

WPC(4) — “Symmetry”

 

BARBED WIRE

IMG_2359

 

Of all the necessary evils strung
across the West, mile after mile
glistening either side of every highway,

every rail, keeping cattle in and people
out: lines of wire and sentry posts
standing between a disastrous mix

of urgencies, a clash of cultures:
the timeless calm of open space
invaded and escaped at seventy.

The better ground fenced between
Frost’s good neighbors, cross-hatched
into managed pastures cowmen dream

will optimize the grass, the grazing—
and of course the breeding: a tangled
trail of testosterone enraged to war,

a crash of skulls, two tons of bellowing
bulls colliding in a storm unwinding
borders for as far as they can.

Most cowboys despise fixing fence—
ride around the long step down
to keep the evil stuff up.

 

 

WPC(3) — “Symmetry”

 

CORRALS

 

IMG_2218

 

Our square creations
become places for the wild
to relax and roost.

 

 

WPC(2) — “Symmetry”

 

SYMMETRY

 

May 18, 2014

May 18, 2014

 

A crop of fat calves
just weaned from relieved mothers
like peas in a pod.

 

 

WPC(1) — “Symmetry”

OLD NEIGHBORS

 

                        By the excellence of his work the workman is a neighbor.
                        By selling only what he would not despise to own
                        the salesman is a neighbor. By selling what is good
                        his character survives the market.

                              – Wendell Berry (“Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer”)

We wish success for all our neighbors, fat
calves and money enough to buy good bulls
looking for work on our side of the fence,
and ours on theirs, despite best intentions.

Today, old neighbors come to help brand calves
with respect—rope, stretch and vaccinate
rambunctious children to a slow waltz—
to share the bounty of our heritage

despite the drought, despite the cows
we had to sell to save the others
and ourselves. Character upon this ground,
we have survived weather and the market.

 

METAL ROOFS

 

                        Let me wake in the night
                        and hear it raining
                        and go back to sleep.

                              – Wendell Berry (“Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer”)

The lullaby that soothes my brain,
a metal roof under rain, proof
of gods and goddesses on the job

while I rest completely—let night
take me unafraid anywhere it wants
until the glistening of puddled mornings

blind me with glimpses of paradise
upon this earth, wet and wanting
nothing more from rustic religions.

Every church should acoustically angle
its spires and ridgelines to accentuate
these heaven’s gifts—and to withstand

retribution’s thunderous roar while
renting and gnashing huddle beneath
the storms that flood the rivers muddy.

We are not the architects, nor the nomads
chasing rain from place to place with herds
anymore. We pray instead for basic

sustenance to run upon and off our roofs,
season after season—no two the same—
to wake in the night and hear it raining.

 

GOOD LUCK FISHING

 

                         Don’t pray for the rain to stop.
                         Pray for good luck fishing
                         when the river floods.

                                – Wendell Berry (“Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer”)

And we will fish reflection pools
with Egrets and Great Blue Herons, wade
cloudy skies when the creek subsides

listening to the glorious chorus of tree frogs
croaking symphonies from fresh verdancy—
the canyon clean, all tracks erased

but for the moment to begin again.
What better luck can any god offer
a mad farmer, or mankind?

April 1968: my feet wet with fishing
the great white limbs of sycamores,
naked canopies reflected below me,

recording fresh soliloquies on war
that have not changed but for poetic
editing each time the creek rises—

hope still claims high water marks
beyond the creek bank, despite
clear-cut scars upon this landscape

after a decade’s invasion of machinery
from towns craving to become cities.
We pray yet for good luck fishing.