Color comes with cold and wet
within the canyon, even before
the creek flows or sycamores burn
leather brown to shed their clothes—
white bodies tangled in a pagan dance
to gods unknown. Orioles return
as sparks in the brush, levity
in the pink overcast of dawn.
We glean the fallen skeletons
of oak and brittle manzanita
to fill the woodstove. Curious cattle
come to wonder what we’re about.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, colors, Drought, Dry Creek, Fire, firewood, Manzanita, photography, poetry, rain, sycamores, weather
Three days ago, this second-calf heifer (9061) was fighting two coyotes off her newborn Wagyu X twins. I got a call from a neighbor who saw the action from the road, but I was 15 minutes away checking our first-calf heifers. I called Robbin who was getting ready to leave for a dentist appointment. She jumped into the Kubota and sent them packing.
Usually twin calves for a young cow is a curse, wherein most cases she abandons the weaker one. If she tries to raise them both, it typically taxes her so much that her poor shape keeps her from cycling to breed back. By themselves near the house this morning, I took out some alfalfa while the rest of the cows were still on the hill. Here the calves are playing while she has an early breakfast in our fourteenth straight day of smoke from the KNP Complex fire in Sequoia National Park and Forest.
I think they’ll make it now.
Limbs dressed in flames, they await the cloudburst that will disrobe them to stand naked and undulate along the creek until it runs— until late spring. Our chorus line of winter nymphs, centuries rooted in the same place, I stare into their fire and pray for rain. 0.29"
On the other side,
all the current dangers rage
unseen that words cannot
assuage. Isolated here,
hands busy with simple
tasks, we cannot breathe.
On the other side,
an unknown future waits
to reshape us to survive.
Fifty years ago,
I was afraid
I would become proficient—
integrate guilt and hate
into my young soul
to become the best
at squeezing death
before a soldier’s
impromptu grave.
On the other side,
we pray for clarity—
for humble purpose.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2020, Ranch Journal
Tagged Covid-19, Dry Creek, election year, Fire, poetry, politics, Sulphur Peak
Eleven thousand
lightning strikes, three hundred fires:
smoke in the canyon.
There’s a dragon with matches that’s loose on the town
Takes a whole pail of water just to cool him down.
– Grateful Dead (“Fire on the Mountain”)
After rain,
willows aflame,
green on black:
photographs
of germinating
truth taking root
after fire—after
the smoke clears
and dust disappears
with seasons changing—
we begin again
with grass.
When I got a little older, I changed.
Maria Lisa Eastman (“War Bridle”)
Summer winds breathe fire
with a bouquet of hollow wild oats
bent on chance and luck—
but we cannot look away
or ever dream relaxed.
One would think with age
and long experience, a man
would become emboldened
with skid-steer-bladed
firebreaks and phoschex
that always help, but time
has proven reason often
beyond the comprehension
of some of us who wait
for the smell of smoke.
About 4:00 p.m. yesterday afternoon, an arsonist started a grass fire about a quarter-mile north of the house, 110°. After calling CalFire, I got to the head of the fire with the skid steer as the first engine arrived.
Fortunately, the fire break we built in April kept the blaze along the road and off the hills, leaking only north and south. After unlocking the gate for the crew from Modoc County familiarizing themselves with the local terrain and responding to smoke, I returned south as Air Tac dumped Phoschex on both ends of the 3 acre blaze.
A wake-up call and good practice for us all as we enter fire season.
Vanity is absence.
– Wendell Berry (“Praise”)
Within the unfolding
Be here!
among waves of leaves
shed like rain
for a moment
of poetry—
somewhere other than
distant histories
and posed reflections.
Be here!
to witness miracles
while the mundane dance
within the grace
of animated metaphors
in the half-light
of dusk and dawn.
Be here!
on our knees
bringing life
with gentle breath
to dry twigs
upon dying coals—
to shadows melting
around our fire.
1.
Don’t care,
go anywhere,
eat anything—leave little
evidence behind, but
barefoot tracks,
whole berries in black scat.
2.
Drought and fire,
slim pickin’s high,
bears lumber off the mountain,
hundreds in canyons
trying to make a living
on damn few acorns—
grubbing for bugs,
trashing trash cans
taking pets and an occasional calf.
Shaggy invaders
from the past
like science fiction.
3.
Oso,
Ursus arctos
own the moonlit mountain town
on Halloween,
rummage door to door,
wait on the porch for more
of anything to eat.
Trick or treat.
(click)
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