Tag Archives: photographs

White Mustard

Posted on December 22, 2014 by John | Leave a comment

BEGINNING

Posted on December 21, 2014 by John | 2 comments

Snow up-canyon, dull green slopes on ashen
skies. With a few clear angels, tiny lights
dim and blink independently on the bare

Red Bud wrapped from last year’s Christmas,
before dawn. Leftovers after drought that
you can see from the road at night, singing

‘we’re still alive—’. Coming back to myself,
a black bull grumbles across the dry creek bed,
listening for the whereabouts of an answer.

First light prolonged at Winter Solstice that
I could not imagine waiting for us—I am
surprised with silence of this new beginning.

WPC — “Yellow”

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal

Tagged Christmas lights, Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, Red Bud, water, weather, weekly-photo-challenge, Winter Solstice

Two Ranges on the Solstice 2014

Posted on December 21, 2014 by John | 3 comments

It’s rare to see across the San Joaquin Valley to the California Coast Range anymore, over the small community of Elderwood, from the Paregien Ranch, then look east to the Kaweah Peaks of the Great Western Divide, and Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park — a good air day!

3 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged California Coast Range, Elderwood, Great Western Divide, Kaweah Peaks, Moro Rock, Paregien Ranch, photographs, San Joaquin Valley, Sequoia National Park, Sierra Nevada, weather

FOR FAMILY

Posted on December 20, 2014 by John | 3 comments

‘Traveling the same track
makes ruts when it rains,’
I tell myself, shoveling,

bringing future runoff back
to gutters and culverts
as if I might make a difference.

They hear me in their home
and come to the chainsaw’s whine
limbing a fallen tree on the fence—

old wire that can be spliced
and pulled up into place
only they will see, gathered

in rock piles above me
like Great Aunts, lifting
wet noses to a light breeze.

I left the house with salt
to see the cattle, check
the rain gauge, photograph

the grass ‘lest my memory slips
again and spins a yearning
into some other poem

for Winter Solstice 2014.
We are family, these cows
and calves, this wild about me

as I stack brush for quail
before I leave with Live Oak
limbs—come home with wood.

From dull light into the dark, we
will roast a rib between us warm
‘round our never-ending fire.

3 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal

Tagged Calves, cows, Drought, family, Fire, Greasy Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, Spanish Flats, water, weather, wildlife

Image

Downy Pincushionplant, 5.5.2011

2 Comments

Posted on December 19, 2014 by John in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged Downy Pincushionplant, Dry Creek, flower-friday, photographs, wildflowers

BEFORE CHRISTMAS 2014

Posted on December 18, 2014 by John | 3 comments

Sulphur – December 11, 2014

No father or mother left to leave
a Christmas gift under the tree—
even the child in us understands.

An ever-ready substitute, the old
Hereford bull plods along the fence
looking past the asphalt, gutturally

conversing with the neighbor’s
registered Angus mothers
while his younger brethren work

the steep brush and rock,
gather families in the wild
from last year’s seed.

Kept another year, just in case
someone gets hurt, we become
the extras for the gods—

walk the sidelines
lending words to the old songs
‘lest the world forgets

the melodies of Christmas
when it rains, or snows low
leaving only grass under trees.

3 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal

Tagged Blue Oak, bulls, Calves, Christmas, cows, grass, Greasy Creek, old songs, photographs, poetry, rain, snow, Sulphur Peak, weather, writing

GRASS

Posted on December 17, 2014 by John | 6 comments

Red Stem Filaree – April 5, 2011

While we slept, the grass grew
an inch overnight beneath the clouds
and passing showers, working overtime,

as the dry earth spun beneath them—
as the creek edged down through sand
and gravel, seeping over the granite dikes

that lump its bed, towards the river
and settlements downstream. I dreamed
we were the end of the line

living on a lake amid thick timber,
fat fish flashing bellies to the sun
and fresh meat hung in a tree.

No other world beyond but more
of the same, working on its own—
no children slain in schools for effect,

no political charades, no slaves
to bankers banking on superfluous debt—
and the grass grew taller, while we slept.

6 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal

Tagged DREAMS, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, red-stem filaree, water, weather, wildflowers

DRY CREEK

Posted on December 15, 2014 by John | 18 comments

December 18, 2010

If you want to feel whole again
sit with the creek and its meanderings
through the old sycamores here
before the Europeans landed
from another world
with new constraints and foreign religions
made to fit people and landscapes.

With this vein full in her flesh
flowing beneath green canopies
from shadows into light,
the canyon drinks
from yesterday’s dark clouds
as it reaches for the sky—
yearning for the source.

Lifeblood of the Bird and Animal People,
of the Yokuts and cattlemen,
it flows the same
when and where it wants—
washing the weak downstream,
yet bringing solace and sustenance
to those who can wait.