Chain saw heavier, I cut arms
off skeletons littering pastures
and canyons after years of drought,
a battleground where old oaks lost
touch with water—most barkless now
tipped-over or in tangled piles
beneath authoritative trunks
begging purpose, begging cremation
or stacked close to the woodstove.
Old habits and rituals finally slow
as the limbs grow heavier despite
the pleading of the heartwood.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged age, cordwood, Drought, habits, oak trees, photography, poetry, rituals, skeletons, woodstove
Color comes with cold and wet
within the canyon, even before
the creek flows or sycamores burn
leather brown to shed their clothes—
white bodies tangled in a pagan dance
to gods unknown. Orioles return
as sparks in the brush, levity
in the pink overcast of dawn.
We glean the fallen skeletons
of oak and brittle manzanita
to fill the woodstove. Curious cattle
come to wonder what we’re about.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, colors, Drought, Dry Creek, Fire, firewood, Manzanita, photography, poetry, rain, sycamores, weather
Three-day one-inch-rain,
warm wet dirt germinating
green hair on steep slopes.
(Click to enlarge)
Posted in Haiku 2022, Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cotyledons, earth, germination, haiku, miracle, nature, photography, poetry, rain, seed, water
After a slow three-day rain,
clay dust dark brown and firm,
we think we see a tinge of green
before wet seed has time to burst
with open-handed cotyledons
through the saturated dirt.
Yesterday, on the optometrist’s screen
I see my eyeballs and optic nerves
that anticipate such good fortune:
bare ground, sloping hillsides
carpeted with short green—
a start to change our luck.
for Terence Miller
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cotyledons, Drought, eyes, grass, green, optic nerve, optometrist, photography, poetry, rain, seed, weather
The weather here is queen,
haggard goddess dodging phone calls,
prayers—she gathers storms
like cattle to market
leaving empty pastures bare to cook
for sometimes years—
sometimes centuries displacing
civilizations for archeological
supposition and conjecture.
We cannot know her mind—
she is old and forgetful
and often wanders in a haze.
But when we smell her
approaching on the wind
our dry skin tightens as
we become like reckless children
turned loose to prepare
the fires for her arrival,
be it wrath or cordial,
for she is queen
of eternity.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, nature, personification, photography, poetry, rain, weather
The cows know the way
following the idling sounds
of the diesel hay truck
to the feed grounds just beyond
the glacial slab of granite
honeycombed with grinding holes
of another era
when 300 Natives
made a living in this canyon.
After the flood
they moved the road
away from the creek in ’69—
exposing human bones.
The cast iron well head
for the red brick slaughterhouse
stands like a gravestone
among dead oak limbs—for
a time between then and now.
A cow turns back to attend to her calf
swallowing dust, another murmurs
trust that there will be hay.
* * * *
0.28″
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, Drought, Dry Creek, dust, feed truck, glacial slab, grinding holes, Natives, photography, poetry, rain, weather
The black hole in the barn
has grown since August
as we peel-off long green
(high-dollar hay) vacuumed-up
by cows nursing hungry calves.
Al the prognosticators
tease us with promises
of thunderstorms tonight
if only to settle the dust.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged alfalfa hay, Calves, cows, Drought, photography, poetry, weather, weathermen
Tenuous, dangerous navigating
redwood sagging on rotting joists
even the dogs avoided
and it took years to make repairs,
slices of time wedged between
perpetual routines
caring for the survivors of drought
when there was no grass or water.
It took the expertise of a patient friend
we have learned to love
and work with—Robbin and I
comprising only half-a-man.
for Jeff Spoelstra
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged accomplishment, Drought, friends, photography, poetry, repairs, teamwork
They’ve taken Saturday’s rain away
with future promises
like plastic magic debt
no one intends to pay.
We’ve been here before,
crooning to godesses
not to forget us
like the hopeless homeless.
We are this ground
rooted into the future
like the plodding lives of cattle,
trusting, trusting, trusting….
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, Cosmos, Drought, godesses, Monarch Butterfly, photography, poetry, rain, trusting, weather
1.
Gray dust clouds rising
behind cows down powdered trails
off these bare mountains.
2.
The diesel feed truck
awakes a bawling chorus
to claim the canyon.
3.
All imperative
and hungry, it twists our guts—
La Niña pending.
Posted in Haiku 2022, Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, Drought, haiku, La Nina, photography, poetry, water, weather
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