Category Archives: Poems 2016

FEBRUARY SPRING

 

February 13, 2016

Common Brodiaea, February 13, 2016

 

Crayons in a child’s hands,
spring is eager to scribble color
upon a greening page,

blue skies without the gray
curlicue cloud-loads of rain—
or like an old woman wise

with too many pots on the fire,
hurried in aromatic steams
to feed us all at once

before summer takes over
our lives. Like cattle pausing
at the gate after trailing flakes

of hay, we are suspicious,
we are afraid supper’s over
before spring has been served

by our idle consideration
that swims in awe of a miracle
we crave the time to digest.

 

THIS SIDE

 

Our hills are turning,
lost the iridescence
that made us squint at dawn,

to just plain green—emerald
clumps of something yet
to bloom as poppies burn

holes in slopes, spreading fire
trimmed in ash-white skiffs
of popcorn flowers

on the steep emptying
into the branding pen
with big bawling calves.

Warm, ten days after
a two-inch rain, old eyes
detect the dry, see

faint yellowing
and don’t believe
in perfect springs,

don’t believe in perfect
anything, this side
of a four-year drought.

 

WELL PLACED

 

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                                                            the world
                              lives in the death of speech
                              and sings there.

                                             ~ Wendell Berry (“The Silence”)

My time is here
within the details—
small tracks that whisper words

I’ve yet to say or spell,
a great expanse opening
new frontiers beyond

the clatter, the cacophony
of commerce, the pomposity
of puppets geared

to create more fear.
Talons latch and lock,
tumble carelessly

with confidence—young
eagles playing, practicing
pinwheels in the canyon

beyond the corrals.
There is no sound
from my open mouth

as they disappear
behind your hat, your horse,
Earl’s board fence

and our cows wanting
to get along.
No time to say

what will never be enough
or too much
before it’s over.

 

BUCKEYE TO GREASY

 

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When hillsides leak,
it could be Kauai
less the rattlesnakes

denned nearby until
the first of March
to bathe in the sun.

When this draw runs
from Buckeye to Greasy
we have enough,

our measure of rainfall
filled with when
we fell in love.

 

EARLY SPRING

 

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We leave winter’s ice and snow
on the other side of the Sierras,
find spring colors waiting,

poppies and lupine in canyons,
yellow mustard claiming gentle
slopes of green, green grass.

How we worry with the bloom,
feel the leer of summer peeking
already to forget the drought.

 

SHADEQUARTER

 

We don’t imagine men
who live alone
in the mountains

of ever dying—
we seldom saw them
when alive.

Word trickles down
the watershed:
tracks in fresh snow

where he lay down
forever to become
part of our landscape.

 

ELKO SNOW

 

On the wind beyond the window,
snowflakes sideways, the street
streams with white waves, riffles

on gusts colliding with vehicles
to swirl like dust on a black
river of asphalt. I am no snow man

and imagine small covies of quail
before the shotgun, before
the bobcat, before taking flight.

Feathers fly with each collision,
gather and flee downstream
as if running for their lives.

 

Elko Sunset

 

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Familiar faces gather,
make camp where it’s warm
in the middle of Nowhere,

Nevada for a song
before the winter sun sets
and the lights come on.

 

THE RIDE

 

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We know the sound, feel it
pound our flesh, reverberate
in our skulls, draw sinew tight

to hold on—to the moment
fleeting, bucking, kicking loose
the last of common sense.

No ordinary ride in the park
upon watered lawns spaced
between pampered shade trees,

we recognize the scent
of rain on sudden gusts,
feel skin shrink, follicles lift

us up, and the sweet cud
swirling above bovine beds,
flat mats of grass awakening.

Not quite wild, we are captive
in a maze of weathered hills,
fractured rock and families

of oaks where shadows slip
and voices stalk—whisper one
more metaphor upon our lips.

 

ALIVE AGAIN

 

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Puffs of cumulous on blue,
naked sycamore ballet, backdrop
of granite rock on tender green—

January after a month of rain,
muddy froth upon the creek
greet me like an old friend.

We pick up where we left off
as if drought never happened,
each afloat in one another’s eyes

applauding our survival—and
the genius of persevering seed
clinging through the years of dust

without rain—our moment now
just to look, inhale the scent
of breath and flesh, alive again.