Tag Archives: death

WINDOW GLASS

Posted on November 16, 2023 by John | 6 comments

WINDOW GLASS

This to a man with neither courage, brain,

nor heart to find his way back home again.

– B. H. Fairchild (“The Second Annual

Wizard of Oz Reunion in Liberal, Kansas”)

I catch glimpses of faces reflected in windows

this side of the mountains the birds mistake

for open space—beak first limp upon the redwood

deck. Bell rung, we set them upright and wait

as most come back to life. I claw my memory,

open it like garden soil for names to nurture

at the damnedest times of day or night dreams

as the bird flies off. Nothing’s quite connected, yet

familiar as my grandmother’s vegetable beef

soup steaming on the electric coil

that blistered my hand red. My aunt would talk

politics back in the Watergate Days, swear

by Nixon, then take my side of the debate

between spoonfuls, beckoning me

from the other side of the window glass.

for Sean Sexton

6 Comments

Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry

Tagged death, Home, memory, photography, poetry, youth

PERSEVERANCE

Posted on August 6, 2023 by John | Leave a comment

Called too soon, persistence rooted

where peaceful dreams beneath their leaves

spilled downhill at dawn—a slow awakening

like death in reverse, never thinking

of other ways to pass the time. Weathered

skeletons of young Blue Oaks cling

to where their acorns fell to rest

before the wet and stormy springs

kept a chance of an idyllic life alive.

Truth is: no right or wrong of it—

no philosophy to make fit

what we’ll not need to understand.

WINTER BLANKET

Posted on December 10, 2020 by John | 3 comments

The skid-steer bucket chatters
against the clay and decomposing 
granite baked like concrete, 
 
inching deeper into my mind 
to the great bay horse dressed pink 
and white with long-stemmed Centuary, 
 
scattered wild petals I covered 
with dirt—each shovelful a memory 
for over an hour.  Another hole
 
and granite headstone, we are surrounded
by the old and faithful we have survived—
another hole, hearts perforated
 
with each dear soul lost that now arrives
to attend this moment to make us whole.
Quick and painless after fourteen years
 
of alert devotion, I steal fine ground squirrel 
tailings smoothed for the ‘good dog Jack’—
a winter blanket to sow for flowers.

3 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2020, Ranch Journal

Tagged death, good dog Jack, graves, survivors

DEATH OF AN OAK

Posted on November 8, 2019 by John | 2 comments

Casualty of drought and time,
no shaded bed in the tangle of dead limbs,
no burnished fruit to harvest—
but its temporary grace in death
teeters beneath the heavens.

What histories yet reside,
what sights saved within its centuries of rings,
of native talk recorded lest
forgotten of wilder beasts and men
teetering beneath the heavens?

I see myself reflected
kindly, a lifetime rooted in the same place
that I’m thankfully becoming
in a harvest of verses penned
that teeters beneath the heavens.

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2019

Tagged death, life, local history, photography, poetry

LEFTOVERS

Posted on December 6, 2016 by John | 6 comments

You escape your sister dying
as we make friends with death
at dinner: leftovers and bottles

of red wine to replay our side
of magnificent dear departures
rich with pride, all the ashes

left to live in symbolic places—
living monuments wrought
by hand to absorb our grief.

We knew them all, see them
stand around the table being
near, each fine quirk strong

as when they breathed mirth
into their last words we call
forth as we remember them.

We move up a growing list
with boozy laughter knowing
we’ve done well, been lucky

despite diminishing diversions
well-beyond this moment full
of exceptional examples.

for JEG

6 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016

Tagged death, photography, poetry

IDES OF APRIL

Posted on April 16, 2016 by John | 5 comments

I could have been born a bird
on a gravel island in the creek,
learn to hide in a small world

before I found the gentle grace
to fly, hop rock to rock
as mother drew intruders off

with shoreline flaps of her white
petticoats, feigning injury,
crying seriously in low circles.

I could have been born a bird
without certainty, without worries
about my death or taxes.

5 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016

Tagged death, Killdeer, photography, poetry, taxes

DECOMPOSITION

Posted on January 16, 2016 by John | 5 comments

                                    I’m below the snowline
                                    biodegradable as hell.
                                          – Red Shuttleworth (“Cafe With Slot Machines”)

When the taxman finds us,
there’s always the argument
over appraisal of this and that

accomplishment, certain failures turned
skyward to face floating white cumulus
with hopes of a more productive afterlife.

The news is too much, poor excuse
for children’s stories peddling common sense.
No Aesop, not even the Brothers Grimm

can keep the future in bread crumbs—
no little red hens to do the dirty work,
no hands-on tools for grindstones.

When he comes, we may be out in the barn
with friends, dusty antiques with loose screws
he may overlook if the dogs don’t

give us away, so far from the house,
trying to freeze time by supposing
we might have made a difference.