TREE FROG TALK

Posted on October 28, 2016 by | 6 comments

 

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I heard a rumor
that this world is much bigger
than we imagined.

 

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Posted in Haiku 2016, Photographs

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CONTENT WITH CHANCE

Posted on October 27, 2016 by | 1 comment

 

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Desk light inside, tree frogs hang on the screen door
stroked by the gentle damp breathing of a downcanyon
breeze, deep dark mouth clear to the mountain pines.

No stars, all black, we wait—anticipate cloudy daylight
together, a red sky dawn and rain, slow at first
approaching, its tiny footsteps soft upon dry leaves.

No new amazement, this cleansing of dust, this erasing
memories and tracks that leaves the ground fresh,
that may swell the seed to burst into green cotyledons,

open-handed to receive sky blessings, small miracles-
in-waiting—a chance, we dream. Wishing is not praying
yet among the bone-dry years, broken skeletons

of old oak trees flailing across hillsides in herds
just before Halloween, Buckeyes drip with bloody
leaves while goblins claim what we cannot see.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

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THE DREAM

Posted on October 25, 2016 by | 7 comments

 

October 27, 2014

October 27, 2014

 

A slice of time incised from ranch
routines, an Indian poet-in-residence
for a week, Jack Kerouac on the wind

escaping Montana’s sub-zero to write
about dreams. He thinks in Crow,
undulating hands stroke the grace

between them, never touching speak,
pleasant sounds of rushing water gush
from his lips I almost understand.

I envy this bear of a man
who brings brightly painted ponies
and the Little Big Horn with him,

the feathered glory of reenactments
and contact with the old chiefs
that breathe past and present here

upon my skin. What a way to go out
to become one with time, turn the soul
loose and gather ‘round the fire

of mountain men, all the old cowboys
and pioneers, all the natives done with
trying to make a living on this ground.

                                                 for Henry Real Bird

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

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TRADING LABOR

Posted on October 23, 2016 by | 5 comments

 

February 12, 2015

February 12, 2015

 

A black and white macro of weathered wood,
corrals and hills beyond, old guitar song
and chiseled men follow smoke to the ridgeline

and back to the fire and branding iron. A ringing
cell phone colors riders, a black calf stretched
between two sorrels—blue denim action

of men and women, old neighbors dancing,
each genuflecting to a moment on the ground.
“We’re branding calves,” a limp loop

answers from the corner, looking down
canyon past hazy orchards, somewhere town
as if he could see the caller, the papered desk,

stretch the thirty miles. A guy with a drone
reports, “We got ’em all.” Empty white tables
and chair legs licked by green tongues wait

with meat, bread and beans on an oak fire, ice chest
beer below a towel, soap and water, plastic glasses
and fresh jug of whiskey ready on a tailgate.

Close again, the chatter of visiting face to face,
gossip, stories and mysteries unveiled, fading
with cows with calves strung up the canyon home.

 

5 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

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CONTEMPLATION

Posted on October 22, 2016 by | 1 comment

 

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There is no urgency,
no destination worthy
ignorance along the way—

even on the familiar
road, nothing stays
as it was—and probing

eyes never quite the same.
All the assumptions,
short-cuts to conclusions

we claimed as instinct
that never were:
laziness and wishful

thinking, yet
we blaze away,
unload both barrels

trying to eliminate
our smoky confusion.
We will get there

soon enough. Make
each moment rich
as a Chinese poet.

                    I venture no more than a low whisper,
                    afraid I’ll startle the people of heaven.
                         – Li Po (“Inscribed on a Wall at Summit-Top Temple”)

 

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: ‘Shine’

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016

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JUST ANOTHER SISYPHUS

Posted on October 21, 2016 by | 2 comments

 

December 10, 2015

December 10, 2015

 

1.
Small at first, rivers spill
High Sierra snowmelt,
water pure as it will ever be

falling to the call of gravity
and time’s relentless roar
over granite smooth, worn

by cataracts and cascades
dressed in rainbow mists
ascending to the whispers

among a million pines—
a timbered mat of arrows
headed to the sky.

2.
We have been there
in our perfect innocence
before our courses

changed the world
as it changed us.
I think it was the waiting

for the war I never served
that made me see that
spilling the blood of boys

could not kill ideas
or forever eliminate
a differing philosophy.

3.
Like water pooled
I am damned again
in someone else’s business

at the whims of men
I’ll never understand
beyond their lust for power

and their addiction to greed
while dancing to the tune
of men and women working

with their heads and hands.
I stay the slope and cling
to the sound of the river

chasing lyrics on paper
since the war—poor poetry
released like mist ascending

to the muse that must
report my plodding progress
to goddesses and gods.

 

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016

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NOWHERE PEOPLE 2

Posted on October 20, 2016 by | 2 comments

 

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                            another heaven and earth, nowhere people know.
                                   – Li Po (“Mountain Dialogue”)

We are the nowhere people blessed
in nameless places where waves of gold
glint off grasses beyond long shadows

that stream downhill at dawn and dusk,
beyond the instant politic of greed
that lusts for more power over

humanity: all the great hearts secreted
away, shared in private moments as if
outlaws. We are the nowhere people

living an ever-changing dream
of the old ways practiced season
after season, as easily forgotten

as fading chimney smoke—
our ascension from this earth
that flesh cannot escape.

 

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016

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Wordless Wednesday

Posted on October 19, 2016 by | 3 comments

 

Neal Lett Photo

Neal Lett Photo

 

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Posted in Photographs

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Welcome Back, Lee

Posted on October 18, 2016 by | 4 comments

 

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Down from the Cedar Grove Pack Station, we’re glad to have Lee Loverin back on the ranch. To have her spell my knees and back bucking bales and feeding hay is a godsend. Light since August, we’ve gradually increased the amount of hay to our first-calf heifers to help them raise month-old calves with growing appetites, and to our replacement heifers to insure they are in shape and cycling when the Wagyu bulls arrive in December. Trying to stay ahead of the game, our philosophy has always been that it’s cheaper to keep the weight on cattle than it is to put it back on after they get thin.

The huge Pacific storm that targeted the Northwest left only a trace of moisture here, not quite enough to even settle the dust. Nothing much in the extended forecast, meanwhile we’ll be feeding hay to our younger girls.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

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A WONDER IS WHAT IT IS

Posted on October 17, 2016 by | 2 comments

 

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                                        and what’s the work?
                                                            To ease the pain of living.
                                        Everything else, drunken
                                                            dumbshow.
                                                                      – Allen Ginsberg

I have no appetite for news, yet addicted
to reason less obvious
than the Emperor’s latest haberdashery.

Coffee conversation stops
to the quiet glide of a Cooper’s Hawk
beneath the roof overhead, limp legs

dangling, quail warm before breakfast.
She has chosen the four of us
to interrupt, to remind of naked grace

in a profane world—to ease the taloned
hold of the drunken dumbshow
before we hay the cows

and we feel blessed
for prolonged moments of wonder unwound
to remember who we are.

 

 

‘A WARNING TO MY READERS’

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

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