Tag Archives: Natives

BFORE THE RAIN

Posted on November 2, 2022 by John | 2 comments

The cows know the way

following the idling sounds

of the diesel hay truck

to the feed grounds just beyond

the glacial slab of granite

honeycombed with grinding holes

of another era

when 300 Natives

made a living in this canyon.

After the flood

they moved the road

away from the creek in ’69—

exposing human bones.

The cast iron well head

for the red brick slaughterhouse

stands like a gravestone

among dead oak limbs—for

a time between then and now.

A cow turns back to attend to her calf

swallowing dust, another murmurs

trust that there will be hay.

* * * *

0.28″

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal

Tagged Calves, cows, Drought, Dry Creek, dust, feed truck, glacial slab, grinding holes, Natives, photography, poetry, rain, weather

NATIVE CATTLE

Posted on February 3, 2022 by John | 2 comments

You see the sign and smell their cud

hanging low in the open

where they have laid, grass blades

pressed exchanging thoughts

and gossiping while fat calves slept

with dreams of more of the same:

no clutter of ambition or greed

living in the moment—

easily startled by those who don’t.

Gentle families: mothers, daughters

grandmothers grow to know you

over a lifetime, learn to read

your eyes, your mind—some

more curious than others

makes you wonder.

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022

Tagged Calves, cows, Natives

CHRISTMAS GIFTS

Posted on December 30, 2021 by John | 1 comment

Long dark shadows in the canyons,

cattle hard to see. They don’t need us now,

heads down somewhere on the mountain,

ground too wet to help them anyway—

all the excuses I need to write poetry.

We fed hay all last year, filled the barn

three times waiting for a rain. These Christmas

storms: miracles to rejuvenate the earth

for man and beast, birds and insects,

steep hillsides begging to explode in leafy

salad greens—iridescent gifts in the sunlight,

like the old days, for years in a row that

have since gone dry and farther in between.

Nothing stays the same, just ask the skeletons

of old oaks where the natives ground acorns.

1 Comment

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021, Ranch Journal

Tagged cattle, Christmas, Drought, grass, Natives, New Year's, oak skeletons, poetry, rain

THE HUNT

Posted on December 28, 2021 by John | 2 comments

The coveys that patrol the yard

and feed the hawks and bobcats,

multiply, divide and die mysteriously

to be reborn again as families of quail—

watchful pop in front of a string babies,

mom riding drag and tittering ahead.

Great entertainment over the years,

we should shoot a few to split them up

to improve inbred genetics, but

who wants to, like dispatching pets?

When I was a boy, I’d hike miles

with my four-ten single-shot,

trail a few to November rockpiles,

smooth granite dressed in green

velvet moss, while the majority

slipped off. Atop the rocks, I’d stomp

‘til they flew in a whir and blur

in all directions. One at a time,

stuffed with slices of apple and onion

baked and seasoned to a burnished brown,

I told my stories of the hunt.

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021

Tagged hunting, Natives, quail

RABB BRANDING TALK, 2021

Posted on January 16, 2021 by John | 5 comments

Before the surplus oilfield pipe
replaced the split redwood posts 
and creosoted oak railroad ties,
 
we remember the old board pens,
acorns tucked twixt crack and plank,
fiery lichen on the backside
of weather-worn 2 x 8s:
 
            distant brandings—
            deceased men—
            voices imitated—
            old saws saved 
            that we exchange, 

each triggering the next 
underhanded head loop loosed 
to hang for an instant, 
 
we snare memories 
like calves to brand—lifetimes 
stretched from hand to hand.

5 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021

Tagged brandings, Natives, neighbors, recollections, Tony Rabb

IN THE SAN JOAQUIN

Posted on March 18, 2020 by John | Leave a comment

Orange Harvest Mural by Colleen Michell-Veyna—Exeter, CA

1.
The valley sinks with pumping
deeper and deeper
into investor’s pockets

before they take the write-off,
before they turn the ground
for a profit.

It’s a clean deal
with no hands dirty.

2.
We are the immigrants
from another time
growing closer to the soil,

dreaming still of rain, bumper crops
and markets high enough
to pay the bank off—

mom and pops
who stay the ground.

3.
The natives heard them coming,
saw the woodsmoke,
left rabbits on the doorstep

to keep the guns inside—
to not spook the game
that fed them before

the tule elk and
antelope were gone.

AT THE WINDMILL SPRING

Posted on April 7, 2016 by John | 6 comments

Out of earth and rock
imagination surfaces,
wants to talk in myths
science will dismiss.

We cannot deny
all senses of the eye,
how it dresses and addresses
what rises before us.

Good water, bedrock mortars—
fish flickering by firelight,
generations of good sense
secured in granite.

Weather Update

6 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

Tagged fish, myth, Natives, photography, poetry, water

2015 CHRISTMAS LETTER TO PAUL ZARZYSKI

Posted on December 17, 2015 by John | 9 comments

20151213-IMG_0840

Dear Paul, the sycamores are undressing
long white limbs, a slow strip tease of fiery leaves
along the creek, my chorus line of dancing nymphs
all these years awaiting storms—but hills are green,
cordwood stacked and banked in thick dry rounds
beside the splitter, hay in the barn, meat in the freezer.
We will be warm with family this Christmas,
come hell or high water—grandpa free
to be a gap-toothed troll if need be.
We come of age all-of-a-sudden, spur
or spurn propriety in slow-motion rides,
get our kicks and licks in where and while we can.

The grizzled old natives never left this ground,
never quite made it past the ridgelines
we rode together busting wild cattle
off rock-piled chemise into the open places
we’ll always gather, build a fire and camp
for eternity—for as long as I remember,
become this ground that claims my flesh.
Slow-sipped days, a joyous plodding now
from moment to moment navigating rains
and grass, old neighbors branding calves
one at a time to stay to see a perfect season—
or as close as we can get, it’s how we make it.
Merry Christmas. John

P.S. Thanks for Montana Quarterly—a luxury
to fish during California’s Dust Bowl—a godsend.