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
After ten dry years, the drought-killed,
dead-standing oaks have shed their limbs
in piles, like clothes at their feet—some
centuries claiming space, offering summer
shade to cows, acorns to a host of hungry
mouths, hidden homes to hawks and lesser
feathered flocks—and have begun to tip
over as the rain-soaked earth lets go
of their decomposing roots to rest
on fences or across the dirt tracks
between us and our children grazing
the ridgetops: like emerald thighs, toes
reaching for the flats along the creek.
Despite the disassembled skeletons
of a generation passing that litters
and melts into the ground, lush canyon
and slope come alive to welcome and beckon
to embrace me for the first time
in a decade—and I overwhelmed, submissive
having spent my penance on unknown sins
I will confess just to prolong this moment.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged anthropomorphism, Drought, Dry Creek, guilt, joy, penance, photography, poetry, rain, weather
March 10, 2011
Once the invincible gambler,
I was weaned on cowboy heroics
to wear the scrapes and scars
of chance and circumstance
stiffly—my bones now groan
ground under the pressure
of time, worn smooth as cobbles
in a creekbed. Stride shortened,
my feet slide searching for stability,
having danced this earth as one
in my collected dreams aboard
four great horses I’ve outlived—
I am learning to change my mind,
to find the flavor in a moment
I’ll not savor another time.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged age, chance, change of mind, circumstance, horseback, photography, poetry, time
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