How many jillion rains have washed away
the rodent digs from these exposed intrusions,
lichen-stained, fractured magma rockpiles
changing shape in the sun’s daylight and shadow
to appear to be alive for eons, like a trout
breaching a clay wave, free to see the sky?
Some have seen so much that they have souls.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023
Tagged anthropomorphism, Lichen, magma, photography, poetry, rain, rockpiles, rocks, soul, water, Windmill Spring
After ten dry years, the drought-killed,
dead-standing oaks have shed their limbs
in piles, like clothes at their feet—some
centuries claiming space, offering summer
shade to cows, acorns to a host of hungry
mouths, hidden homes to hawks and lesser
feathered flocks—and have begun to tip
over as the rain-soaked earth lets go
of their decomposing roots to rest
on fences or across the dirt tracks
between us and our children grazing
the ridgetops: like emerald thighs, toes
reaching for the flats along the creek.
Despite the disassembled skeletons
of a generation passing that litters
and melts into the ground, lush canyon
and slope come alive to welcome and beckon
to embrace me for the first time
in a decade—and I overwhelmed, submissive
having spent my penance on unknown sins
I will confess just to prolong this moment.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged anthropomorphism, Drought, Dry Creek, guilt, joy, penance, photography, poetry, rain, weather
The deer in that beautiful place lay down their bones:
I must wear mine.
– Robinson Jeffers (“The Deer Lay Down Their Bones”)
Secreted within steep brush and granite
to browse the fresh and tender Buckeye leaves,
the fragile innocence of deer seems tame—
safety but a bounding leap away.
Were we so unengaged to see ourselves
as novelties, we might pause more often
to look out upon the urgencies of men
and women inventing new shenanigans
to keep us shackled to our egos
as redundant and unnecessary weight—
were we so rational. How we envy deer
their shrouded bowers where they can feed
themselves. Nearly as free as deer
in the rocky cliffs above, the doe can see
the calves we have been looking for.
On the weather map
watching the storm slide
slowly down the Sierras,
a green right arm wraps
around San Jose,
counterclockwise,
headed toward this warm
midsection, and I wonder:
with an upper cut of cold?
—wet inch down already,
as if the gods are on a mission
to treat us squarely—
as if there is a plan
to anything,
or just random rolls
we learn to adjust to
moment after moment
never seen before!
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged anthropomorphism, gods, life, storms, weather
Between here and the road, the intermittent
sound of summer cars across blond pastures,
fat black cows grazing, lazing in shadows—
a gentle world where coyotes pass and pause
for a squirrel, a bobcat trains her babies,
and crows raid bird nests for their own.
Snake bit, your mother’s inside dog is gone
to meet her, yet I still leave the sticky door
ajar, listen while I dress for his awakening.
Between here and the road, we see what we want,
watch naked skeletons of oaks come alive, and
long-limbed sycamores dance in an orgiastic tangle.
We can feel these hillsides breathe, hear
the heartbeat underneath. Not since the natives
has this place told so many stories.
drycrikjournal 