Rare harmony, the grays and greens
spill off the hills like stringed music
in the gloaming, naked oaks in granite,
cows and calves bent to new grass
step slowly mowing earth and rain
at work in the bright of day and night.
Like sea tides rising, each blade eager
twists towards the moon in cool darkness,
drawn to listen to heaven’s basic chords.
A wild sound is playing now outside
while waiting for a cloud, for the strum
of winter storms to prolong the song.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, grass, photography, poetry, weather, wildlife
I turn away, blinded by November’s
first light, Redbud hearts enflamed
with last season’s feed on green
burning yellows between dark shadows
with the news, with disbelief.
I retreat to calm counsel with cattle:
scattered pairs, calves fresh with life
finding legs to fly—buck and run
figure-eights without direction always
circling back, showing off for mom.
We will work the heifers anyway—
give them everything we can
to make them attractive to Wagyu,
their first bulls. And we will wait,
as we always do, for rainy days.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016
Tagged Calves, cows, photography, poetry, politics, rain, weather
Heading into winter, black cows yet fat
sucking calves—damp, thick-piled green after rain—
everyone is clean and shiny off the hill, parading
to water early to laze in the shade. Pages
of poetry shuffle across a desk messy with business,
an untitled collection scattered and spread,
collected and clipped faraway in my head
from our family of cows, from short remarks:
our song of words and phrases overflowing
with the water troughs at Windmill Spring,
spilling too spontaneously to require editing.
We needed to collaborate, to escape the loud
and demanding devils too close to home.
In this place, we are blessed with native eyes
and forgotten tongues—where we can relate
long poems in the luxury of untamed silence.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, Paregien Ranch, photography, poetry, weather
February 12, 2015
A black and white macro of weathered wood,
corrals and hills beyond, old guitar song
and chiseled men follow smoke to the ridgeline
and back to the fire and branding iron. A ringing
cell phone colors riders, a black calf stretched
between two sorrels—blue denim action
of men and women, old neighbors dancing,
each genuflecting to a moment on the ground.
“We’re branding calves,” a limp loop
answers from the corner, looking down
canyon past hazy orchards, somewhere town
as if he could see the caller, the papered desk,
stretch the thirty miles. A guy with a drone
reports, “We got ’em all.” Empty white tables
and chair legs licked by green tongues wait
with meat, bread and beans on an oak fire, ice chest
beer below a towel, soap and water, plastic glasses
and fresh jug of whiskey ready on a tailgate.
Close again, the chatter of visiting face to face,
gossip, stories and mysteries unveiled, fading
with cows with calves strung up the canyon home.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged branding, Calves, cows, Greasy Creek, photography, poetry
Down from the Cedar Grove Pack Station, we’re glad to have Lee Loverin back on the ranch. To have her spell my knees and back bucking bales and feeding hay is a godsend. Light since August, we’ve gradually increased the amount of hay to our first-calf heifers to help them raise month-old calves with growing appetites, and to our replacement heifers to insure they are in shape and cycling when the Wagyu bulls arrive in December. Trying to stay ahead of the game, our philosophy has always been that it’s cheaper to keep the weight on cattle than it is to put it back on after they get thin.
The huge Pacific storm that targeted the Northwest left only a trace of moisture here, not quite enough to even settle the dust. Nothing much in the extended forecast, meanwhile we’ll be feeding hay to our younger girls.
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’
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, Drought, photography, poetry, rain, weather, weekly-photo-challenge
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.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, photography, poetry
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, photography, twins, Wordless Wednesday
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.
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.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Blue Oak, Calves, photography, poetry, rain, weather, wildlife
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