Category Archives: Poems 2017

It is not care
nor compassion for the earth
that has nurtured generations
of all things
that drives the train
of speculation and suspicion.

High up in June,
the ground we gather
is still green and damp in places
crawling with baby bullfrogs,
bogs in the draws where streams
begin at the end of fingers
to join a canyon with a name
on some maps.

Microcosmic creation place
to feed a world where life
blooms before trickling down,
we harvest calves—big bulls
and thick-waisted heifers
because of rain—slick
ultra-naturals without a brand
or vaccination for the world
below.

There is no immunization
for the news that sells
and sells and sells…
it is not care
nor compassion for the earth
or for humanity
that drives the train.

A young Red Tail waits,

                    his nest mate on another
                    set of braces, mother
                    in a sycamore,

for a fresh batch
of baby ground squirrels—
eyes just open now,
but naïve to being
at the bottom
of the food chain.

Eggs and feathers
come early for hawks,
learning to hunt soon after
young rodents are born
full of innocence.

He has never seen a man before
and eyes me curiously, carefully
and will stay the summer
securing the ground around
the corrals dining on squirrels.

Grasses dry, the empty heads
of wild oats bow to a breeze,
rip gut and foxtails cling

for traveling—the hills are blond
come June. With coming summer
sun, tender lilies bloom

well-after Easter
reaching for a short life
and the 100-degree sky.

Growing into horseback dreams
takes time and dedication for little girls,
pushing cattle where the feed can be

heavenly on the good years—a home
for heifers and their first calf—
we’ve watched her grow to be good help,

to hold her own over years
of pillowed nights imagining—all
come true right before our eyes.

                                                 for Allie

                                        It is time for us to kiss the earth again.
                                             – Robinson Jeffers (“Return”)

We have wandered far from the roots
of our sustenance, the bloom and fruit—
with rain the eager volunteers of stalk

and seed and the herds of harvesters
that circumnavigate uneven ground
and till tomorrow’s table full. We have

lost touch, lost taste, lost our senses
for living well, close to the smell of dirt
from whence we’ve come and will rest

in the end. Instead we let our minds’
appetite for the scandalous fill hungry heads
with acrimony and self-righteousness

to feed another uncivil war. It’s time
for us to stop—take the time to kiss
this earth dressed in her many splendors.

Quietly reading cattle
and one another,
prolonged moments
when words come too late
to be applicable—

no room for poetry,
no time to edit—
it is a dance instead,
a gentle rhythm
of man and beast

expressed privately,
a sixth sense
we take for granted
after a lifetime
sorting cattle.

First cup of coffee
and Nicorette gum rush
to startle the senses
still slumbering
in the shadows of dawn.

The slow retreat of dreams
replayed on hillsides,
circumstances stashed
among others
in the rocks and crevices,

deep within hidden canyons
worn by centuries of rain,
for safekeeping—
unforgiving places
you may not want to ride,

reserved spaces
collecting wild regrets
with reveries—
first drafts
of uncompleted poetry.

Night shrinks into shadows rising
to ridges trimmed in gold, the day
awakes with or without us.

An eagle retreats
a crow escaping
four and twenty blackbirds:

squadrons of fighter pilots
patrolling nests—like flycatchers
on the peck riding the shoulders

of hawks—a brutal business
in the air over eggs
and babies in pintails

needing to be fed
or be food for others—
trees full of gaping beaks,

all the helpless beginnings
awaiting their place by design
amid hostilities of spring