Solids, liquids, gases move.
This could be Oregon
moisture falling into drought—
the hard and dry begins to slip
and slide with the magnetic pull
of each, releasing me to supposing
why I’m drawn to certain people,
places, mountains, trees and rocks
come alive—ions spinning webs to hold
my eye, my flesh, my open mind.
I’m below the snowline
biodegradable as hell.
– Red Shuttleworth (“Cafe With Slot Machines”)
When the taxman finds us,
there’s always the argument
over appraisal of this and that
accomplishment, certain failures turned
skyward to face floating white cumulus
with hopes of a more productive afterlife.
The news is too much, poor excuse
for children’s stories peddling common sense.
No Aesop, not even the Brothers Grimm
can keep the future in bread crumbs—
no little red hens to do the dirty work,
no hands-on tools for grindstones.
When he comes, we may be out in the barn
with friends, dusty antiques with loose screws
he may overlook if the dogs don’t
give us away, so far from the house,
trying to freeze time by supposing
we might have made a difference.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016
Tagged age, children, death, future, Red Shuttleworth, taxes
November 7, 2015
I escaped the farm
as a backcountry packer
of mules, to the rhythm
of hooves and draw chains—
found my way lost in awe
yet branded in my mind.
There was another world—
girls in town to think about
up and down the Sierra’s spine,
Wolfman Jack on the transistor,
boss and soul, rock and roll
for company by the fire.
I called to faraway faces
over falling starlit peaks,
the granite scree glittering
into Tamarack timberlines
as I lay down each night
to dream on solid ground.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged awe, mules, packer, Sierra's Spine, Wolfman Jack
Like the old days, hillsides
slick and wet, we brand
between rains, hurried loops
neighbor-to-neighbor, each
bunch a hard-won victory
for work-worn bones.
Morning Advil or Aleve
for squeaky hinges
lubricated with a plastic cup
of Crown, hot meal grinning
with good company.
For a moment we are young again,
but with muted bravado—understand
Tony’s deadpan disappointment:
tonight’s storm retreating north.
Not quite the coup to drink whiskey to,
we want more sore evenings
by the fire, just to hear it pour.
Posted in Deck Poems, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Sunday evening, pickup loads of snow
file down the road to town: snowmen
for Visalia, Exeter, Farmersville front yards
to melt and soak into drought-brown lawns
no one’s mowed in years—a hurried
shortcut from mountains to Valley
upon a crumbling blacktop channel—
water that these oaks and sycamores
see only as lumps of white passing at fifty.
The west and south slopes fill-in
with green, purple patches of frost-bitten
filaree that looked like bare dirt,
softly embrace us now as if we were cattle.
Too wet for work that waits outside,
we slowly release winters of urgency
camped at the door and ease into the
vaguely familiar—reacquaint ourselves
with mud and rain, with one another.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
We may blame the invisible
deities, the almighty powers
we can’t see work
against us—toying with
what makes us tick
to urgent clocks.
And we may find relief
damning them
with metaphors, similes
and alliterative profanity
as if the gods were deaf
to rehearsed poetry.
But the sagest save energy
turning blasphemies loose
just under their breath.
Bumper crop of acorns,
warm monsoon rains.
The redbud bloomed
confused, drawing butterflies
for weeks—the season’s
last hatch of Monarchs
swarming crimson, orange
and black-trimmed fairies
to the front door.
All a sign of something
unusual, uniquely beautiful—
that superfluous imbalance
charged to an unknown
future—a fleeting gift
to remember the gods
before leaving us
four years dry and begging
for something normal.
Weekly Photo Challenge: “Weightless” Monarchs
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Acorns, Drought, gods, Monarch Butterfly, Redbud, signs, weekly-photo-challenge
October 5, 2013
The ground swells with the storm,
penetrates to granite rock
leaking rivulets in predictable places
and I want more to flood memory
of the dry years, smooth their track
chiseled in the walls of my skull, yet
outside myself: a perfect miracle
as the earth takes slow swallows first.
I am this place despite my selfishness,
my impatience and vengeful desire
to forever purge this drought
as my flesh comes slowly back to life.
With crystal clarity, stars throb
before the storm moves in at dawn,
black air clean clear to infinity,
leaky bucket worlds peeking-in
the window as I wake from sleep—
another promised day of needed rain.
Once, we took the day off,
went to town, visited neighbors,
congratulated nature for the extra holiday.
A machine takes messages
from a nine-to-five real-world
ordered to make hay on rainy days—
and I listen, hoping no one wants me
but time, time to ride the prolonged rage
of a loud and sudden thunderstorm.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged rain, stars, thunderstorm, time
Long on promises, she moves closer,
a slow seductive dance lightly touching,
barely brushing the roof before she leaves
in the dark. I am too old to chase
blindly, and wait instead for words
to fall upon the page when she returns—
or not. I believe she means business.
How she loves to tease the be-Jesus
right out of me. It makes her feel good
too see me uncomfortable, vulnerable
to her every gesture, the stormy look
of these hills wrapped in gray gossamer
dawn waits to unfold at first light
if I’m lucky—if I’m patient enough
to let her have her way with me.
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