Tag Archives: memories

THEY COME TO ME (aka “WILD OATS”)

Top: Jim Wells, Leroy Whitney, Scott Erickson. Middle: Jack Erickson, Kyle Loveall, Gary Davis, Jr., Forrest Homer, Mehrten Homer, E. J. Britten, Earl McKee, Jr. Bottom: Clarence Holdbrooks, John Dofflemyer, Craig Thorn III.

 

Ever so gentle, these waves of wild oats—

easy undulations into the wide swath

of bright-yellow White Mustard

 

in the disturbed ground

where we fed bulls

drought after drought.

 

If ever I could reinvent myself

as easily with storm after storm,

shake the slow walk and run

 

with breath aplenty, mind sharp.

Hazy days of snapshots flashing

uninvited or young among old men

 

now gone in the photograph

of the branding crew Rochelle took

when Craig was still alive

 

hanging on the bathroom wall

with south slopes of pure gold,

wet spring after the Drought of 1977.

 

Ever so gentle, these waves of memory,

stories only searching names,

ever so gentle, they come to me.

 

 

 

CREEKS

 

I crave the quiet intimacy of creeks

that feed the bigger rivers

roaring in the granite gorges

 

or widespread in redundant riffles

with nothing to say.  I rather fish

dark cutbanks and water skeeter

 

eddies frothed below white dogwoods

arching over High Sierra leaks, eclipsing

all but mottled light as I move upstream—

 

each small pool a unique realm

for browns and rainbows

grazing transparent skirts.

 

Now that I know I won’t go back,

it is not an appetite for trout

that consumes sweet memories.

 

AMARYLLIS

 

 

The bulb Carolyn gave you years ago
rose between three boulders
where we lay the headless rattler

               to get young Katy
               to pay attention—
               running, dancing,
               always on her toes.
               Her shriek and cry
               cut to our souls.

Huge, bright-orange petals,
like tongues aflame
among adolescent coals—

               Summer Solstice,
               105 degrees—

saved to the shade
on the cold woodstove
to bloom for days,

to hold my eye
and expose
a slice of memory.