When we quit questioning,
when darkness falls
upon the wilderness of wonder,
are we afraid
of our imagination,
of other possibilities
among the night songs?
How full and fresh the child
that asks and asks, that sees
the disconnected weave
a vibrant tapestry!
How stale is he
that wears the answers
chiseled in a cave
to recite by braille.
Before and after the weather report
we get news from far away places:
tragedies and terrible things
that want to linger in our minds
asking questions—but we don’t like
the answers that must be true
about the nature of humans opposed
to peace, that are driven to leave
horrible impressions behind.
We watch the cows come into water
in a well-spaced line, taking turns
at the trough, then count quail babies
herded on the lawn to escape the cat.
Within a wrinkle among so many others
on the durable hide of this planet,
we inhabit a canyon shaped
by the allocation of water
apart from the world outside.
Behind our back, ground squirrels
crawling on their bellies raid
the peach tree, an Elberta with huge
fruit starting to color that bob
and bounce across the pasture,
bigger than the heads that run
with them gripped in yellow teeth.
Come evening, a flutter of black
feathers, our resident pair of crows
dining at the fence line on scattered
cadavers, fuzzy lumps awaiting
buzzards for breakfast.
Everyone trying to make a living,
nothing goes to waste,
not even peaches.
– for Mas Masumoto
My brother, the old farmer, says
that it’s about over, that out
in the Valley where I seldom stray,
brand new drilling rigs rise
every two miles above the orchards,
out of corn fields reaching past
underground rivers that have lost
their way—like locusts, like aliens
descended to pound and perforate
the earth with steel, pneumatic
proboscises, they shine
through sun and starlight.
In the garden, the damp earth
moves, as if alive, with tree frogs
and toads traveling the shade
from flower leaf to vegetable
like a plague, like a sign
at the end of farming
or this drought, or for El Niño rains?
All the wishing at the wellhead
doesn’t matter to a tree frog.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged El Niño, old farmers, signs, tree frogs, water wells, well drilling rigs
When were children, we ran half-naked
through July and August sprinklers
where the tough Bermuda grass
always needed mowing. We spurned
shady places and lay instead with girls
getting baby lotion tans. As my flesh
cooked, I would close my eyes, fireworks
beneath their lids—my imagination ran
to places I knew nothing about—
just disconnected flashes of flames
within the black. No one seemed
to mind the heat in those days.
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged Brand, Fire, iron, weekly-photo-challenge
1.
Never a straight line, we bend
with the channel of the creek
with or without water, jobs
shouting at every turn, begging
for attention. I love it now,
seasoned and with purpose,
place after place to pour my soul,
to get it right. Chances are
my fence repairs will outlast me,
gates will swing, troughs hold water
out of respect for the ground—
for the cattle and those around me.
2.
Never a straight line, cows cut trails
on perfect grades, leave soft dust
to plod tomorrow without thinking,
make beds in shade for generations
they will never know. In the end
it becomes our nature to make
living easier on the uneven,
on the unpredictable and the harsh
that will eventually absorb us.
Chances are, no one will notice,
no applause for our best effort—
only the knowing a job well done.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged age, doors, Gates, nature, purpose, weekly-photo-challenge, work
How do they know, these old fat cows
that read a baggy sadness in my walk
among them checking irons as they pull
alfalfa stems apart to tongue green leaf
in the corral? The gates are set, waiting
for the truck to town. There is nothing
right about the moment, that they know—
little consolation in my voice, they eye me
suspiciously searching for details
in my muted gestures. If I told them
all I know of town, of auction rings
and rails, they would all revolt
for the brushy hills, lay fences down
to take their chances without water
through the summer—that I know.
The place has changed
where water pooled,
ringed by cattails
at the end
of irrigated pastures
long gone brown
for rock and gravel
royalties that boomed
before the bust.
How many times
have those Mallards
risen in my mind?
My father’s words
on a Sabbath saved
from Sunday School,
an ascension
beyond religion
dripping from clouds.
You could hear them
from the squash and cucumbers,
from the tomatoes where the rattler
stretched upon damp dirt to cool his belly,
in that no man’s land of prickly pear
and grape canes claiming shade trees
on the periphery of ripening vegetables—
their incessant tittering within: military
training before their first tour of the garden
scouted at the peak of heat days before,
our lawn of weeds this side of roadrunners
nesting in the cottonwood under
the surveillance of a pair of crows.
The only green for miles of hard
baked clay and blond dry fuzz,
a microcosm of good wet years,
the wild moves in, gathers to include
us—horses, dogs and feral cats—
into a sustainable family.
Tree frogs on the move, hopping
sojourns at dusk and dawn bring
the King snake tracking Garter snakes
that ignore us, stay out from underfoot.
We have no choice but to share
our little space and water in a drought.
We will count the covey into the future,
measure training into evenings, watch
for Bobcats and Coopers Hawks on patrol.
No place for soft hearts, politics,
or too much attention—no one wants
or can afford to run for election.
drycrikjournal 