Category Archives: Poems 2026

RACHEL

Posted on October 11, 2026 by | 1 comment

I can smell the salt in the dark,
coffee and cigarette in hand,
Rachel splashing California’s coast

swallowing beachfront mansions.
On a slight breeze out of the south
I can smell the sea.

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Posted in Poems 2026, poetry

BEFORE THE EQUINOX

Posted on September 18, 2026 by | 3 comments

The lazy sun sleeps in,
sinks sooner, but brings color
on a breeze to these hills

growing golden until it rains—
even the turquoise turkey mullein
fades to brittle bronze. No place to hide

for hungry ground squirrels, assorted
hawks and Golden Eagles glide
above their tailing piles

or tease and test one another
with aerodynamic acrobatics
as summer heat relinquishes

its hold on the air we breathe.
We become young once more,
stepping lightly with aging feet.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2026, poetry, Ranch Journal

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SCATTERED HUMAN HERD

Posted on September 11, 2026 by | 2 comments

Young finches fall like leaves from the Valley Oak
we planted 30 years ago
to congregate at the garden’s overspray
collected in a homemade dish—fluttering, fluttering, fluttering…
waiting for space to drink from its edges.

They always startle me
from the corner of my left eye,
as if an avalanche, or branch tumbling to the ground—
releasing me from my reverie of the buck and run
of newborn calves into the long shadows of dawn.

Their mothers plod and graze in a straight line
towards the new water trough
suspicious of the gravel and concrete replacement,
stopping to listen to the familiar clunk of the pump
after browsing the first light of a new day.

The finches rise in an orchestrated flurry,
in an unheard whir
into trees, a welcome intrusion,
one more bucolic page between me
and my fears for a scattered human herd.

for JEG

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Posted in Poems 2026, poetry, Ranch Journal

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SUSTAINABLE GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT ACT

Posted on August 23, 2026 by | Leave a comment

PEAK EVERYTHING, OVERSHOOT, & COLLAPSE—Chapter-19-CA-aquifer-depletion.jpg

California has the law it needs
to retire Mom and Pop (early)
when they can’t find the fees
to fund its application—

let the citrus hang on trees,
fill the furrows with oranges
when they can’t pay
to drill a deeper well

if there’s any water left
after the Big Dogs drink,
leave and let the farm ground sink
clear to hell.

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WATER TROUGH

Posted on July 16, 2026 by | 3 comments

A water trough
leveled for a float
with a puddle
at the bottom

resembles our aquifer
thousands of feet below
the tax write-offs
of corporate farming,

as the ground collapses
to take the water’s place
deposited before man
walked this earth,

before we were so many
thirsty inhabitants
pumping for more
until the trough is empty.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2026, poetry, Ranch Journal

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROBBIN

Posted on June 29, 2026 by | 2 comments

Quiet and still, nothing on the narrow road
before dawn, the birds are sleeping in
on your birthday, hills genuflecting

where heifers graze the dry creek bed,
a moment frozen from our beginning
before the barns, fences and a herd of cows

to be proud of. How we howled in the dark
through the open window, challenged the coyotes,
let the empty canyon know we were here to stay.

All these years on your birthday, too busy
to count them, too busy to care,
too happy to have it any other way.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2026, poetry, Ranch Journal

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BARN AS A BANK

Posted on June 26, 2026 by | Leave a comment

Winter’s bank against
cold dry fronts,
almost certain.

An account
to draw from
when it doesn’t rain.

Price up or down,
we put cash in
glad when it’s full.

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GAMBLING

Posted on March 23, 2026 by | 1 comment

Rain nine days away, they say—those prognosticators.
95 degrees third week in March after a month of dry
as the grass on south and west sloping faces
goes to seed next year’s grazing—or so we hope.

Lifetime wagers on the weather,
and gambles on the market for hay and cattle,
we pray that politicians don’t impede our subsistence
to garner more attention—control and votes like always.

We are the pawns in this equation, farmers, shepherds
of this world, tracing dawns along the ridgelines
chasing seasons for generations—filling empty plates
with much more than what most people see.

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BABY BLUE EYES

Posted on March 7, 2026 by | 1 comment

My mother’s favorite,
first of the season,
a family in the same bed

across the creek all these years,
she mentioned fondly
when I was a boy.

Photo: March 24, 2009

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LIARS NEVER PROSPER

Posted on March 3, 2026 by | 2 comments 

    The liars punishment is not in the least that he is
    not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
          - George Bernard Shaw

We look to the gods we know
for retribution, the short proverbs
our long lives have proven true

as we await once certain consequences
yet concerned about our absent deities,
afraid that verbal substitutes like

‘taking care of number one’
becomes the mantra,
becomes the drum

that humanity has learned to march to.
Look away from the circus fools
‘lest we give them credence.

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