THANKSGIVING

Posted on November 24, 2022 by | 2 comments

 

A pause like prayer,

a nod to the gods holding

the wild together.

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Haiku 2022, Photographs, Poems 2022

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CREEKS

Posted on November 23, 2022 by | 4 comments

 

I crave the quiet intimacy of creeks

that feed the bigger rivers

roaring in the granite gorges

 

or widespread in redundant riffles

with nothing to say.  I rather fish

dark cutbanks and water skeeter

 

eddies frothed below white dogwoods

arching over High Sierra leaks, eclipsing

all but mottled light as I move upstream—

 

each small pool a unique realm

for browns and rainbows

grazing transparent skirts.

 

Now that I know I won’t go back,

it is not an appetite for trout

that consumes sweet memories.

 

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CHEER

Posted on November 21, 2022 by | 5 comments

 

 

Nothing near, the long-term forecast

changes on the hour as we look out

over Christmas color, out of storage early,

 

at independent calves at water,

and our persistent green still breathing

with each dawn’s dew. Almost everything

 

we need is near-at-hand before Thanksgiving

with a welcome splash of cheer

as we wait for rain, like always.

 

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal

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HEARTWOOD

Posted on November 16, 2022 by | Leave a comment

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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2-S DEFERMENT

Posted on November 13, 2022 by | Leave a comment

 

 

It might have been a miracle

to have survived the 60s

and all its first-time diversions

 

beckoning, daring the unknown—

full-grown children loosed

to explore the candy store

 

with the ambush of War

stealing the black and poor first,

green jungle hungry for more.

 

Abstract at best, the future

failed to kindle dreams

beyond the minefields.

 

 

 

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WINTER FIRES

Posted on November 12, 2022 by | 2 comments

 

 

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.

 

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COTYLEDONS DAY THREE

Posted on November 11, 2022 by | 2 comments

 

Three-day one-inch-rain,

warm wet dirt germinating

green hair on steep slopes.

 

 

(Click to enlarge)

 

 

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GOOD FORTUNE

Posted on November 10, 2022 by | 1 comment

 

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

 

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IT

Posted on November 8, 2022 by | 1 comment

 

 

Who bankrolls

the nasty TV ads

that verge on slander,

 

the propositions

to make law

no attorney comprehends,

 

then leave it up

to the common man

to cast his vote

 

for the profit in IT,

be IT self-righteous egos

or just plain cash?

 

Imagine the power-rush

spending someone else’s money

and then to get paid

 

with all the perks

for IT

for life.

 

 

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QUEEN

Posted on November 5, 2022 by | 6 comments

 

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.

 

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