Category Archives: Poems 2018

                                                   I think we should keep
                    some of this, in case God comes back
                    to see what we did with it.
                                        – William Stafford (“The Whole Thing”)

He’s been away, it seems, left His lackeys
asleep on the ridge, or dressing up, waving
their diaphanous sleeves before the polished

window glass of town. We could have used
some help, some rain to inspire more Glory
in our eyes, our minds, our flesh—this grass

refreshed. Busy it seems, hands full
with despots and tyrants beyond our horizons,
this dry ground forgotten to endure with our own

small labors. Now we are the found strays
coming into hay we taste on wet nostrils,
ready to follow through any open gate.

Upon the ridge between
Ragle and Live Oak Canyons,
a mile or more three miles away,

sun and moon seasons slide
Solstice to Solstice
when there is no way

to measure time exactly—
days without names
beginning behind

                    a different tree
                    to diffuse the light
                    for a moment

and I am blind, lost to this world,
refreshed—each new day
sliding between the canyons.

It takes dry wood to keep the fire
going, cutting, splitting and the timely
delivery to glowing coals to stay warm—

the archaic rituals of individualists:
the harvests of backyard gardens,
the battles with weeds and pests

that win eventually. We choose
the hard way to save a dime, we say,
spend two-bits for a nickel raise.

Throwbacks to the old ways:
shovel, hoe and axe—hand-to-hand
combat with this earth, this dirt.

Small accomplishments that will
not change the world. We grow wild
to live among the foes we know

in this life and the next. Cordwood
warming moments, fruit wood
tasting of independence.

Not far from here, wet-haired calves
wake beside their mothers, bellies dry
where they’ve warmed the earth

and they will nurse before the bunch
grazes the tops of ridges, damp clay
hillsides soft between their toes.

We didn’t ask for much more
than a heavy dew after a month of dry
to keep the grass alive, didn’t beg

or pray or dance before our gods—
but waited stoically as dead-standing
oaks reflected in our eyes.

Old children with hardened hides,
we have been disciplined by years
of drought and disappointment,

we wait and weigh our options
with rain enough to last a week—
hope enough to last a lifetime.

                    God created men and Sam Colt made them Equal.
                         – Old West Adage (March 5, 1836)

Gunslinger, quick draw myth we cherish,
the West is wound with dreams
come through the centuries like a mist

hanging on a bare branch, prismed droplets
clinging, sparkling with our inheritance—
now we are rich with missiles and rockets

aimed to kill and maim, to keep the peace
with fear in this overcrowded town—
the dark shroud that shields us equally.

All between a cow and daylight,
she broke your collarbone,
a long bumpy ride on a dirt road

to the asphalt, to Emergency—
and we sink pipe and steel
for tomorrow’s taste for beef.

It could be a moonscape,
bacon-frying buzz of welding rod,
family of oak trees frightened,

unable to run. Well-scattered
somewhere near, we will watch
the future learn to work together

in these corrals: cattle, horses,
men and women—branding calves
far-removed from this crazy world.

I graduated from the 60s
with a broken heart
for a world at war,

                    but I had known love
                    and lust and peace
                    were easy to come by—

and with my anger
dug postholes deep,
tamped railroad ties

to last a lifetime
holding barbed wire up
tuned guitar tight.

Rusty fences sag
and leak in places now,
braces lean with

the constant conflicts
beyond these pastures—
none so sure or secure.

Yellow daffodils
clumped like campfires
on gray days,
gopher snake sunning
in a dirt road,
no snow in Elko,
no rain at home—

‘Climate change,’ you say,
‘is tree hugger poppycock
leveraged to slow production
and change our ways.’

White-limbed buckeyes
feathered in tender green,
turkey hens leaving sororities
cruising the creek to nest
adapt to the propaganda

as we scuttle normal
with options for cattle
without rain, grass to graze.

Nothing stays the same, only
nothing—the wild balance
scrambles for survival.