1.
Honed peaks and ridges
cut the clear blue sky
and lagging cumulus rising
between storms,
as we await the tail
of a Bomb Cyclone
predicted for our metal roof
with coffee before daylight—
or so we pray.
2.
Slow in—slow out.
Gray clouds clinging
to the hillsides,
four hundredths all day—
58 high,
52 low after
an all-night soaker
with little runoff
to start the grass.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged photography, poetry, rain, weather
We trust the rain,
the early stirring of colored leaves,
our synapses electrified
before it leaks from the gray—
storms absorbed, the darkening
of settled dust as the wet thatch
of old feed folds
to hold the damp explosion
of open-handed cotyledons—
renewed miracles of life,
iridescent greens become tall
heads heavy with seed
to feed ourselves and others,
the wild and tame, crazed and sane
denizens of this planet.
We trust in rain.
We pray for rain
and wait.
Posted in Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged photography, poetry, rain, weather
Exeter, California mural painted by Morgan McCall and Mitchell-Veyna in 1996
He ain't got no loan
Cant grow no corn
He ain't got no loan
- Levon Helm (“Poor Old Dirt Farmer”)
A cattlemen’s get-together,
a fund-raising dinner—awards
and not-so-silent auctions
at the end of summer
before the calves come,
to rub shoulders with the neighbors
who’ve gotten older
or by surprise disappeared
altogether
like the uneven ground shrinking
for grazing cattle
and our flat ground sinking
with too much pumping
on the same old cow.
The banks are nervous
with farm ground worth
half of what it was
without water
to plant and raise a crop
to feed us
and pay the growing costs
(plus taxes and interest)
and threaten to foreclose
on homesteads with row crops
or orchards in piles
that have become bare ground
to develop, for speculators
to make small fortunes
for corporate investors.
Mom and Pop
have moved to town,
following the kids
the land couldn’t support—
but it’ll be so much easier
for everyone to shop
for third world groceries
at the Wall Street outlets.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry
Tagged agriculture, banks, farms, food, loans, photography, poetry, SGMA, subsidence, Sustainable Groundwater management Act, water
Hunter’s Supermoon – Photo: Robbin’s I-Phone
Inhaling darkness spiked with chilled silence
soothes the synapses, spares the soul
with deep breaths released to space
beyond this combative planet and its grumbling
eruptions, its mindless explosions
of patriotic hatred. Ingesting the cool blackness
purifies a moment, relief on an early morning
clean slate to begin with, to try again
to write something worth reading.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Hunter's Moon, photography, poetry, Supermoon
The redbud's broad green leaves
float on long stems
from the stump I’ve left behind
half-dozen times instead
of digging it up
to chase insistent roots
with a shovel, unearthing
its bed of fat succulents
outside my window.
So determined,
it has even lifted a flower pot
to find the sunlight.
On light gusts it waves
in the corner of my eye
to interrupt my thoughts
as if a visitor arriving
with something important
to tell me.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry
Tagged determination, persistence, photography, poetry, Redbud, roots
With so many holes in my memory
what remains seems like yesterday.
I jettisoned the shameful first,
then turned the irrational loose
to make room for the moment
before it slips away.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Cord McKee, memory, moment, photography, poetry
It sounds like a drug
for the infirmed
or a dressing for horses’ hooves
or a government program
to keep poverty alive
and consuming—
it sounds soothing
to the summer-baked subconscious,
a galactic reprieve
before the leaves rain
in gusts
before the first storm
stirs weathered flesh.
Autumnal Equinox
just rolls off the tongue.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged autumnal equinox, photography, poetry
Dilated and making bag,
first-calf heifers choose to graze,
closer to our familiar voices
over morning coffee. Perhaps security,
or our loving pride they feel
long distance as we imagine
a pasture full of calves clinging
to a mother’s shadow, the buck and run
as they get older like the thirty years
before them. We begin another season
of grass with rain, with feeding hay
ready to face the future with them.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, Calving, family, first-calf heifers, photography, poetry
Wilma submitted poems to Dry Crik Review on her typical scraps of paper most of which I published. One, however, I did not publish because I could not decipher one word in the poem from her handwriting. I scanned it to Betty Blanks, who has recently authored a book “Pick Up Your Pen And Write: The Life of Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel” http://wilmaelizabethmcdaniel.com, to help me out. The word was ‘ping’. Til now, this amusing poem has never seen the light of day.
FAKE FORTY-NINER
We knew Ardell
had been acting crazy
for weeks
he grew a beard
stalked around
muttering to himself
I gotta go now
to Jackass Hill
to Poker Flat
and Angels Camp
I gotta pan some gold
race me some frogs
kiss me some CanCan girls
I really gotta go
He drove away in his Pinto
with the ping
towards the motherlode
on Golden Chain Highway 49
We didn’t hear from him
until his bonanza petered out
he phoned collect
the Pinto gave up in Jamestown
a gusher of poems
that poured out of the house
on Highland Street
and watered the town
- Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel (“The Gusher”)
They fall from the sky
like hawks at play
and dive into our poetry,
perfect words
we cannot claim, but do—
to hunt the periphery
for a place to light
to transform a poem
into something better.
I am reading Wilma
in Tulare next Saturday—
revisiting her real Okie poetry,
searching for the one
that breaks my drought
into a flood of verses,
a gusher of poems
that poured out of the house
on Highland Street
and watered the town
Posted in Poems 2024, poetry
Tagged cosmic, inspiration, muse, poetry, Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel, writing
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