Category Archives: Poems 2015

AFTER RAIN

Posted on February 9, 2015 by | 12 comments

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Sun sets on the sighs
that cling to wet hills grinning
color into clouds.

 

 

WPC(3) — “Scale”

 

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Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

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OF GODS AND GODDESSES

Posted on February 8, 2015 by | 3 comments

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In her nearly ninety years,
Nora Montgomery couldn’t remember
hillsides as solid with poppies

as the golden spring of 1978
after two years drought,
cows calving in dust.

Slopes alive, fences leaked
lovers and photographers
from all over—

a glorious reward
for enduring a dry nightmare
early in my career,

the foundation
of a young man’s confidence,
the religion he lived by.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015

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WAITING TO BLOOM

Posted on February 7, 2015 by | 6 comments

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In the darkness, I listen to a light strum
upon the roof, visualize the size
of raindrops, calculate the hours

necessary to quench the earth’s thirst
for a week or two before going back
to dream of hillsides too wet to climb,

cattle fat come May – nothing I can do,
but hope and pray for some release.
Sucked dry, we still hold on to a chance

for a verdant spring, grass bellyhigh
and sprinkled with wild colors
from all the old seeds waiting to bloom.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015

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LONE PINE, CA

Posted on February 7, 2015 by | 6 comments

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This close to heaven,
just below the timberline
pine trees climb and wait.

 

 

WPC(1) — “Scale”

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Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015

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KESTRELS COURTING SPRING

Posted on February 5, 2015 by | 3 comments

 

Nothing sudden, poor dry hills
like thin cows show too much bone,
I look away for a spot of green

in shadows of trees, on north slopes
to weigh our hopes: how many days    left
before it rains? Bankrupt with years

of debt, of dirt exposed, of dust released,
the old oaks have given-up to start over—
to become earth again, and we

make plans to brand another bunch
like Kestrels courting spring, falling
in a flutter before me yesterday:

fourth of February, seventy-seven degrees.
Nothing sudden, we plod against the obvious
knowing nothing stays the same.

 

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Posted in Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

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RAINDROPS

Posted on February 5, 2015 by | 3 comments

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Following fifty tons
through light showers
across Nevada,

big alfalfa bales
towards our dry
California home,

we focus on raindrops
streaking reality
after a week of poetry

and song, to feel
our poor possibilities
grow by the truckload—

heavy with an endless
emptiness in our bellies
beneath the straps

of seat belts
before another wreck.
We hang on.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

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LET THEM GO

Posted on February 4, 2015 by | 4 comments

 

What comes of words planted
from a poor harvest
but strong seed to root between

the cracks of rocks gathering
every bit of rain to fruit
again and again. Listen

to the defiant sound they make:
a crop of clashing cymbals
before they die and blow away

to a better place.
An iffy eternity at best,
but let them go, anyway.

 

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LEAVING ELKO 2015

Posted on February 2, 2015 by | 3 comments

 

Like scattered birds, they circle back
hovering, fragments of faces, bits
of song fluttering and floating before me,

moments searching for a place to roost
within memory. Some high and bold
on bare branches singing yet, singing

always, while others light behind
a rustling wall of leaves to build nests,
mate and incubate quietly within me.

 

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THROUGH STRINGS

Posted on January 30, 2015 by | 4 comments

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Not wind through willow limbs that sing of rooted past,
but our first tunes, drummed upon catgut strings, cast
beyond early stirrings searching words to fit a melody
of earthly work, we find a moment’s worth of immortality.

 

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ON THE SEMI-ARID EDGE

Posted on January 22, 2015 by | 10 comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The big dogs are drilling deeper,
pumping the last of a million years
of underground water, each river

dammed into furrows to farm
the empty Laguna de Tache.
Sixty years ago, when red lights

stopped in every railroad town,
colorful cornucopias spilled
from billboards onto Highway 99

bragging fruit or vegetable capitals
of another world, and huge Big Oranges
squeezed juice every ten miles.

On the semi-arid edge of change,
we beg for rain and dream of floods
to take this Valley back in time.

 

                    *     *     *

 

1876 Tulare County Map

Wiki: Laguna de Tache, Tulare Lake

 

 

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