Tag Archives: Blue Oak

Blue Oak Casualties

Posted on March 27, 2017 by | 3 comments

 

 

Oftentimes during a year of stress, some Blue Oaks shut down, loose their leaves, only to come back to life the following season. But our 4-year drought was too much and too long for whole slopes of oaks, despite above-average rainfall this season. Now, as the survivors begin to leaf-out, the casualties are fairly easy to distinguish. Most, it seems, are below 2,000 feet in elevation on north to west-facing hillsides. As these trees have been here all my life, I’m guessing they are over 100 years old, but most have probably been here less than 200 years. Usually at the top of these slopes is an older tree, or remnants of an older tree, a grandfather oak that provided the acorns.

(Facebook viewers can enlarge the photo by linking to the blog)

 

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TO LIVE FOR

Posted on October 4, 2016 by | Leave a comment

 

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Late spring rains last into October,
empty-headed wild oats bow
to a southwest wind suggesting change

from broiling days—maybe rain.
Snakes crawl out from under shade,
backs to the sun, warm their bellies

in fine trail dust. Blue Oaks shed
large dark acorns glinting
in dry leaves like burnished gems

and we are rich, breathe deep relief
as fresh calves find steady legs
to run without direction, learn to stop.

We gladly give all up to chance
and certain change believing
this is the time we live for.

 

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EQUINOX 2016

Posted on September 21, 2016 by | Leave a comment

 

Terri Drewry photo

Terri Drewry photo

 

Long shadows on blond feed tall,
standing skeletons of oaks from drought,
the gray cow caught talking with an iPhone
to her new, silver-belly calf.

No audio, too far to catch the vocabulary
lesson, the inflection of each murmur
into song, the guttural beginnings of all words—
a universal language of basic sounds

with deep meanings that defy time
and cultures, that survive the latest plague
of progress and the genius of science—
no better teacher than a mother cow.

 

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Drought: Blue Oaks

Posted on March 26, 2015 by | 3 comments

 

March 24, 2015

March 24, 2015

 

The impact of three years of drought on the Blue Oaks shows up well as the trees that have survived begin to leaf out. (Click to enlarge) These Blue Oaks are across the creek from our house, on a north slope at the 1,200-foot elevation. No rain in sight, the grass has turned 30 days earlier than normal as we prepare to head into an early summer.

 

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ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR

Posted on March 23, 2015 by | 8 comments

 

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Hollow pipe songs at first light
pierce the darkness, own the dawn
with answered calls from oak trees

and granite piles of fractured rock
balanced on the edge of time
frozen around me. Early morning

solos grow into a chorus of chants
on the other side of the door,
a primitive awakening to greet me,

to ignore my circle of chores.
We’ve become part of the landscape
they return to, generations born

near cattle, horses and water troughs.
After these dry years, a colony—
a reunion of Roadrunners nesting.

 

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RAISONS D’ÊTRE

Posted on March 16, 2015 by | 6 comments

 

                                       Now in the quiet I stand
                                       and look at her a long time, glad
                                       to have recovered what is lost
                                       in the exchange of something for money.
                                            – Wendell Berry (“The Sorrel Filly”)

Looming closer, a swirling darkness just beyond
the thought of summer’s water that is not
frozen deep in the Sierras to feed our rivers

and canyon leaks—of brittle fall and cattle
gathered at an empty trough. The creek dries back
and sinks in March, lifted to new canopies

of sycamores dressing. Skeletons of old oaks
stand out between greening survivors, some
wearing only clumps of yellow mistletoe

hanging like reasons, raisons—like raisins
clinging to a leafless vine. Each season
spins the same dry song, yet we find our place,

harmonize and sing along, lifted like precious
moisture to tender leaves, a basic ascension not
available in the big box stores, unrecorded

in the history of our presence. This may be
the new normal for old people—that daze
of amazement we have been working towards.

 

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LAYERS OF DIRT

Posted on March 13, 2015 by | Leave a comment

 

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This ground recovers our presence
with leaves and weeds, most all
of our mistakes erode with flowers,
explode with colors leaving seed

as accomplishment sags like ridgelines
of old barns and brittle wire between
broken posts as we sink satisfied
into the soil rich with the work

of hands. Calloused hands, hands
a horseback that track our thoughts
when we were green and learning
to see and think the hard way.

As we breathe, all the chiseled chins
of the rough and gruff retreat
to live as monuments in rock piles
with the honesty of rattlesnakes—

an immortality stirred into the earth
that can’t be purchased, but is always
upon always like the layers of dirt
our future depends, rooted within.

 

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TIME CHANGE

Posted on March 9, 2015 by | 9 comments

 

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Early yet in an early spring,
growing patches, orange-gold,
claim open slopes like flames,

Fiddleneck between gray skeletons
of Blue Oaks pushing bud,
feathery translucent leaves

where the gods walk ridges,
wave hands to paint,
adding color to hillside green

we’ve not seen tall in years.
Out of dust and naked dirt,
new mosaics, lush with moments,

openings for everything put off
in drouth—real work we absorb,
take our sweet time to recognize.

 

 

WPC(2) — “Orange”

 

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ALMOST MARCH

Posted on February 21, 2015 by | 4 comments

 

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Thin veil of snow on the Kaweahs—
granite shows on peaks undressing.
The creek slows and disappears

as the thirsty earth drinks miles
from the river, puddled behind a dam
that will not fill the Valley’s furrows.

Tan medallions, last spring’s leaves
quiver from brittle fingers of oak trees
sprinkling green hills, giving centuries

of rainfall back as decomposing homes
for smaller survivors. It is not over
despite a forecast chance of rain—

dry seasons last, leave evidence only
years of floods can erase. Almost March,
the buzzards have returned early

circling an easy harmony of generations
gone—each clear voice rising,
we hear assurance and good advice.

 

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KESTRELS COURTING SPRING

Posted on February 5, 2015 by | 3 comments

 

Nothing sudden, poor dry hills
like thin cows show too much bone,
I look away for a spot of green

in shadows of trees, on north slopes
to weigh our hopes: how many days    left
before it rains? Bankrupt with years

of debt, of dirt exposed, of dust released,
the old oaks have given-up to start over—
to become earth again, and we

make plans to brand another bunch
like Kestrels courting spring, falling
in a flutter before me yesterday:

fourth of February, seventy-seven degrees.
Nothing sudden, we plod against the obvious
knowing nothing stays the same.

 

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