EVENING RAINBOW

Posted on October 16, 2016 by | 6 comments

 

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Into thirsty flesh,
we inhale the smell of rain
upon dry grasses.

 

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge 2: ‘local’

 

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Posted in Haiku 2016, Photographs, Ranch Journal

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HALLELUJAH

Posted on October 15, 2016 by | Leave a comment

 

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Out of the southwest, wind
down the dry draw damp—
dust devils dance across
ground grown bare by cows

meeting near the water trough
with the run and buck of calves
finding all four legs to stir
hope for nothing certain:

this first chance of rain.
Time may seem to fly
now that we are older,
or plodding slower shade

to shade with less idleness
to fill with complaint—summer
long and hot, but shorter than
our partnership with drought.

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: ‘local’

 

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GOLDEN RULE

Posted on October 13, 2016 by | 2 comments

 

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I would like to say that thinking
like cattle is preferable to humans
who need immediate answers

and science to prove them right,
whose urgency demands action
and reaction until the herd’s

thundering hooves stampede
the earth into atomic dust.
Cattle would not press any matter

enough to destroy themselves,
but rather play domestic than wild
given time to weigh your wishes.

Making sense of them you must
be cordial, shed your fear and anger—
try to remember the Golden Rule.

 

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2157 – Twins ( 3 Pix)

Posted on October 12, 2016 by | 3 comments

 

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TO A POET

Posted on October 11, 2016 by | 2 comments

 

My reading slow, I hold the sounds
scratched on paper, hear a song
that draws me near, behind your eyes—

ten thousand rivers fall in moonlight,
all the stars like cold fire streaming
from the mountains and you are there.

Beyond them, beyond you and I,
we cannot hear or see, even in daylight,
swept up in the Canyon Wren’s cascades

falling into pools lapping mossy rocks.
My empty mind is full with your eyes
on paper I can revisit any time of day.

 

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Posted in Poems 2016

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BULL OF THE WOODS

Posted on October 10, 2016 by | 3 comments

 

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He wears his father’s stamp
at five weeks, biggest bull calf
in a family of cows and babies

ready to hold his herd against
anyone of any breed
at first light crawling out

from under the black screeches
and howls of darkness beyond
the moving shadows of a half-moon.

We are born with it, you know—
instinct deep within the soft marrow
of our bones living with wild

uncertainty until our fathers
return home. And we will follow,
watch and try to help them work

all day long, learn what we have yet
to grow into—and sleep bone-weary
with pastoral dreams of peace.

 

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AFTER BIRTH

Posted on October 9, 2016 by | Leave a comment

 

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We come naked and wet
into a place knowing nothing,
blood stirring cooler

under rough tongues,
familiar reverberations
of outside sounds

clearing our coats of afterbirth,
cleansing the scent that draws
the cleanup crews on this earth

hungry for work, before
we ever nurse, before
we stand and step

up to the plate, fill ourselves
and face new lessons
best we can. Slowly we learn

to keep the faith
and our opinions
to ourselves.

 

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Sun Cup / Camissonia

Posted on October 8, 2016 by | Leave a comment

 

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We’re on the right track identifying yesterday’s wildflower thanks to Richard’s comment and friends of Facebook friends from CNPS. I’ve included the larger plant because I can’t visually confirm suggestions from Calflora photos, i.e. Camissonia contorta, Camissonia campestris, Camissonia pallida , etc. and to offer more information to those who’ve made suggestions.

This Camissonia is tough, right in the path to the corrals where a hundred head passed over it several times this spring. Our fate does not hinge on absolute identification, but far more interesting than this election.

 

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Nameless

Posted on October 7, 2016 by | 5 comments

 

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I found a little patch of these interesting wildflowers on a well-traveled, sandy bank of Dry Creek in mid-April 2016. At first I thought they were Pygmy Poppies, but they may not be poppies at all.

 

Flower Friday

 

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THE WORK

Posted on October 6, 2016 by | 7 comments

 

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                                        I realize that in terms of body and spirit,
                                        body grows sick while spirit’s immune,
                                                  – Po Chü-i (“Climbing Mountains in Dream”)

Like a wall, hooks in hand,
I’ve scaled bales of hay stacked
too far off the ground to fall

for nearly fifty winters, boot toes
feeling for a crack and hang
while synapse talks to flesh—

a longer conversation now
for this ascension. I can fly
in my dreams, scramble

like a squirrel up a tree.
Awake: my spirit intact, in touch
with heart and mind’s belief

in these old knees they will escape
after the truck is loaded, cattle
fed—when the work is done.

 

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