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.
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.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, Christmas, Drought, grass, Natives, New Year's, oak skeletons, poetry, rain
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.
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.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021
Tagged brandings, Natives, neighbors, recollections, Tony Rabb
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.
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.
~
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
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.
Native generations rise
at water, hoof and pad,
inhaled at dawn.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Drought, dust, Greasy Creek, haiku, Indian Ground, Natives, photographs, poetry, water, Yokuts
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