Even a rattlesnake knows when to retreat— half-a-dozen quick hide-a-ways at his mental fingertips. Who wants to know the latest detail of the same old news, only to recognize ourselves in Chekhov’s mirror? Soap opera or box, all the bad actors stage left and right look like possums in the headlights. Weary-washed with waves of news, a man could drown and sink to the bottom— but even a rattlesnake knows how to swim.
Clouds cling low,
I tend the fire:
stir red coals—dry
branch of manzanita
alongside oak,
crack of air
to the woodstove—
play solitaire
and wait for words
that hide behind
naked sycamores
along the creek
too deep to cross,
the flood of news
too much
for pleasant poetry.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2017, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, news, photography, poetry
Even now, the news glides like manes
and tails over me to pass beneath the sun—
sometimes precursors to a good rain,
a dark storm, but mostly mean nothing
to horses and cows, to the bobcat planted
at the outskirts of Squirrel Town, haunches
frozen in the filtered light. There was a time
I yearned to find my legs elsewhere, test
the edge and taste the wild among the crowd,
lust in love and make news of my own.
But born in the sticks, more like a coyote
than a house dog, I crave the space to grow
gray within my nature, stay to the canyon
and let the headlines pass like one more
empty cloud and save my howling for the moon.
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