Third day wean
when hungry heifers
eat out of my hands
at the feed bunk—
leafy alfalfa flakes
that fall apart, the rich
green of last year’s
high-dollar hay—
rather than distress
over mothers no longer
posted at the gate
that most have left
lamenting another loss
of nine-month intimacy
and their mother-daughter
companionship.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, Ranch Journal
Tagged 2023 heifers, bovine intimacies, innocence, photography, poetry, stress, weaning
Ever so gentle, these waves of wild oats—
easy undulations into the wide swath
of bright-yellow White Mustard
in the disturbed ground
where we fed bulls
drought after drought.
If ever I could reinvent myself
as easily with storm after storm,
shake the slow walk and run
with breath aplenty, mind sharp.
Hazy days of snapshots flashing
uninvited or young among old men
now gone in the photograph
of the branding crew Rochelle took
when Craig was still alive
hanging on the bathroom wall
with south slopes of pure gold,
wet spring after the Drought of 1977.
Ever so gentle, these waves of memory,
stories only searching names,
ever so gentle, they come to me.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged age, branding crew, Drought, Drought of '77, flashbacks, Holland Corrals, memories, photographs, photography, poetry, rain
No spring chicken, she’s let herself go
wild after a decade of waterless summers
as if saving up the emptiness to fill at once—
every wrinkle in these hills oozing rivulets
into foaming cappuccino creeks cresting
towards runaway rivers spilling, flooding
valley towns and farm ground with lakes
and bogs—all the years of prayers answered
with much more passion than we wanted.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, flood, Mother Nature, photography, poetry, PRAYERS, rain, weather
Too many years courting goddesses,
genuflecting at the foot of ridgetops:
oak trees sharp and close enough to touch
to beg relief—to even entertain
such shameful blasphemy, such
feeble will to forever lose their ear.
Every river canyon churns to fill
and spill its reservoirs, white-capped
Sierras stacked with two-year’s snowpack
awaiting summer’s melt to flood the flats
and yet I can’t concede what is not me:
always ready, waiting for a good-hard rain.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged dams, flood, photography, poetry, prayer, rain, rain goddess, rivers, snow, weather
We have left our mark on this ground:
the house, the pipe, the horses,
cattle, shop and barn—and the avenues
between them—that were not here
forty years ago where the deer lay down
beside the road. Our tracks everywhere
we worked details into grazing hillsides
and raising calves you’ll never see
before they are erased by time’s storms
and someone else’s appetites and dreams.
Our short moment among the mortar holes
and pictographs that will outlive our presence.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry
Tagged culture, Home, mortar holes, photography, pictographs, poetry, time, tracks, Wuknaw
The creek-flood bears no malice
as it carves its way to a flatland war
unearthing trees and buried cobbles
of past centuries—laying waste
to man’s old and new improvements.
It cares no more than the clouds and rain
that feed its energy, its violence
and its thunderous roar. Nor does it
bestow charity to soothe our minds
and flesh—it has no agenda, no noble
purpose nor dishonorable motives.
It just is what it always has been.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, flood, photography, poetry, rain, water, weather
Every day is a holiday
when you can’t remember
what day it is—
when you can’t leave the driveway,
can’t leave the blacktop,
when it’s too wet to plow
for weeks at a time
as the creek rises and falls
with Atmospheric Rivers.
The finches bring branches
of dry debris, Roadrunners
chaunt solicitous love songs
despite the divine disasters
that temper mortal urgencies
a week away from the Equinox.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Atmospheric Rivers, cabin fever, Dry Creek, Mother Nature, photography, poetry, rain, weather
Highwater debris,
enough to measure peak flow
gauging stations miss.
We’ve begun naming creeks
that flood the dry draws,
pull nominees from our histories
while exchanging guffaws.
We have become the helpless
prisoners of the weather,
of flatland floods and saturated mud,
resisting cabin fever.
Roads and fences, trees to cut,
our work comes to a halt—
no need to fuss, cows don’t need us
with water, grass and salt.
Posted in Haiku 2023, Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged cabin fever, Dry Creek, flood water, haiku, helpless, humility, mud, photography, poetry, rain, runoff, water, weather
We never quite know
how our negligence
is ultimately received.
Somewhere upstream,
a tire too close to the creek,
became humor and irony
tumbling downstream
to balance and settle
with the flood debris—
a perfect amount
of seasoning for
a State of Emergency.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, Ranch Journal
Tagged brush catchers, Dry Creek, flood debris, high water, humor, irony, jetsam, photography, poetry, rain, weather
Safe arms of an oak
support an unruffled pause
for all but the dogs.
Posted in Haiku 2023, Photographs, POEMS 2023
Tagged barking dogs, Bobcat, photography, poetry
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