drycrikjournal

Early March, and she toys with us—
checks-in to make sure we wait
patiently, perhaps even pray

for her attention as she stampedes
across town, destruction in her wake.
We are helpless only to watch,

rooted to this ground ignored,
but for light kisses, promises
blown on her way out the door.

We know her well, intimately—
sustaining every dream and more,
believing in her fickle fidelity,

her wild extremes we have endured
for lifetimes. Yet, we begin again
to learn our place in this relationship.

The Spotted Towhees find last year’s leaves
to stir and kick around with the kind of blind
intensity of natives, as if they’ve always lived

here scratching beneath the outdoor chairs—
moved-in as if they owned this place before us
and whatever other square inch they may occupy,

yet so briefly that no one objects, not even
the cats, having their sneak and leap already
fixed and gauged as clumsy and rudimentary.

Even the sleepy dog tilts his head towards
these busy interlopers. How could we ignore
these squatters, these colorful immigrants?

OregonLive.com
                                           courtesy of Rene Eisenbart, The Oregonian

On days like these, light gray
promises hang on the horizon
along the Coast Range waiting

to be invited, shy rains late
and hesitant, empty-handed,
yet we race to get the delicate

inside and under roof, just
in case, glancing up at the sky.
We have forgotten how to dance

the dark storms in, to drum-up
rolling thunder to fill the creeks
with sheets of rain. We measure

normal with a straight edge instead—
level all the crags and peaks,
all the gaps and secret passes

to a flat and steady grade
to forecast our chances, to gauge
our bounties and disasters with

a number that always deviates
from the average for this moment—
the only science we understand.

Most years, there is no need,
nor time, for vacations. Over
the weekend, a lioness visited
the canyon, screamed all-day
for her tom. Last month, an
extinct wolverine was spotted
along the creek, and occasionally
a Condor sails somewhere north
of where he’s supposed to be.

Sapsuckers and Towhees
range off their maps, and when
the snows swing south, this
could be Bavaria, before ten
generations spread across
this untamed continent
from the Shenandoah
looking for adventure
and more ground to farm.

Staying here, the rules are few:
your word and what you do
are all that count for currency—
the balance trades as counterfeit
rhetoric among the natives
where there’s always someone
with a sack-full of polished beads
looking to be a chief. An ebb and
flow unchanged away from home.

One after another, each
bone-weary day wakes
into a blend of light:

cattle, hills and fading green,
full of doubt. After yesterday’s
branding, Frank Ainley offers

a lengthy, hats-off grace
encompassing good neighbors
and food with an afterthought:

reminding the Lord that we all,
except for maybe me, need
some rain. To be so solemnly

singled-out to a God I wouldn’t
bother—juggling so many crises
on this planet—seems appropriate,

yet requires, as he knows,
a special request from me,
or perhaps be left out.

Ever the teacher, the coach
the deacon, the way is clear
to his Almighty God.

                            This isn’t a brave new world but one finally revealed.
                                                        – Jim Harrison (“Suite of Unreason”)

Horses watch for morning movement,
hear the door, plod towards the manger
and wait, each reconnoiters his established place
beneath a rain of green alfalfa leaf
without thinking. And when the time comes,
an old horse expects his daily grain.

Basic routines become benefits of age,
habits replacing failing memories, we feed
ourselves and others by rote, day after day—
minds free to chase more important things
revealed in our lapses, that common path trod
among a diversified mob of simple beings.

O’ that fresh touch of youth, the confusion
of dreams, wild pushed to uncharted expectations
that now fade to legendary embellishments
defying wisdom, or ownership, much less
common sense—we lived on the edge
of our every sensation, believing we had wings.

Now that we have lost our selfishness,
our center to a universe of starlight winking
much the same during our quick stay
on this planet, this earth alive
with the whimpers of birth and death,
we walk upon another landscape.

Is this our promised land of forgetfulness,
our sins discharged to disconnected gray
matter? We hold one another closely
and find comfort with what our short time
has proven, and unveiled as the real world
to explore: simple beings to find our way.

Underneath it all, a raging
surge, an undertow below
simplistic words that float—
the tossed and churned asides
of daily discourse: our secret
code of strange disdain and
anger that the world has changed
without us, without notice,
without the consultation
we deserve in a democratic
republic. No one’s immune.

I love stories of the old days
when Anyman could be
a character, a distant crag,
a local landmark, a unique
feature of a culture clinging
to wilder ground, before we
tamed and broke its heart
into paved submission, before
new rules that make them
outlaws after the fact, after
the feeding we consumed.

Yet some things stay the same:
always the self-righteous
and dark closets, always
diversions from the truth,
always greed and power lust—
just follow the money.