Tag Archives: photography

NUMBERS

Posted on May 8, 2025 by | Leave a comment 

Don’t add another number
to my name or address,
to my Real ID, cell 

or plastic magic,
Medicare and 
(and thank you, Merle)

so-called Social Security.
With so many numbers
how can I be sure it’s me?



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Posted in Poems 2025, poetry

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BLACKBIRDS

Posted on May 7, 2025 by | 1 comment
A blackbird perched on a rusted railing with a rustic background.

Like fighter jets after hawks,
they nose dive the dog,
attack from redwood boughs
to protect a fledgling
too soon on the ground.

A community, a murder, a grind,
a merle or murmuration
of blackbirds has moved-in,
displaced the finches’
crimson dance upon the rail

with cocky walks and orgies
of foreplay and flittering sex
anywhere they please—but ready
to herd a rattlesnake
out of the garden and barnyard.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal

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FIREBREAKS

Posted on April 19, 2025 by | Leave a comment

Blading the season’s last green grass
for firebreaks, I need to concentrate
far away from the world’s turmoil,

peel the weeds out of the soil
or sever their roots, over and over
the same ground until smooth—

an impatient perfectionist,
carving a twelve foot road
the cattle will travel and dimple

like a golf ball, but will stop fire
if not too windy to ignite
wild oats and tall dry feed

easier than I can throttle back
the flow of pompous rhetoric
that has ignited global animosity.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal

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MARCH HAIKU

Posted on March 23, 2025 by | 2 comments

On top of the world
the fat calves are curious—
nothing else to do.

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Posted in Haiku 2025, Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry

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MINING THE MOON

Posted on March 20, 2025 by | 2 comments

What has happened to the world,
the people, the planet,
now that we can measure

parts per billion,
the distance in light years
to the nearest black hole.

Crowded in corrals,
we are bent beneath the weight
of useless information

shouldering our way
to the EXIT gate
to shed the burdens

of mind and flesh—
lifetimes spent
trying to escape?

What has happened to the world,
this magic planet,
its Mother Goose,

her golden eggs
the rogues are after
mining the moon?

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry

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TANGIBLE FANTASY

Posted on March 17, 2025 by | 1 comment

When the rains come right
and knee-deep green feed hides
beneath Fiddleneck in the flats,

we forget the bare, baked slopes
cut by dusty cow trails plunging
to the murmur of the diesel truck

spilling alfalfa flakes the length
of undressed pastures—lost bawling
calves and slow thin cows.

So blessed to have disremembered
the lean dry times, we believe
the miracle is normal, that Hera

and her daughters will set-up camp
and stay a fruitful future for man
and beast, creeks in the canyons—

a tangible fantasy for the thriving
when the rains come right
to change our way of thinking.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal

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WE KNOW BETTER

Posted on February 21, 2025 by | 2 comments

We know better than to claim
success when the grass is belly-high
and Dry Creek runs year-round.

We know the fickle temperament
of the wild gods and goddesses
who have few rules and no obligations

to monied interests, no crusades
to justify their integrity: certain
dominion over man’s campaigns

to domesticate their nature
for a dollar—that will, in time, undermine
humanity’s conceit for much less.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025

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ADDENDUM

Posted on February 14, 2025 by | 3 comments

Dim light above the kitchen table,
wet wedding rings beneath ceramic coffee cups,
shod horses fidget in the aluminum gooseneck
outside before daylight.

“Are Bud and Monte comin’?”
“Nope, just you and me, Babe,” he grins
showing teeth beneath his moustache.

“Any stars?” she asks. “It’s s’posed to rain,
you know, sometime today.”

“A few holes in the clouds is all,”
as he looks up at the ceiling.

“With a little luck
we ought to make it up the hill
before it gets slick,
get the cattle down
and be home by the fire
before it gets too wet.”

After a pause and long swallow, she asks,
“You know what day it is?”

“Thursday, I think”

“Is that all?” she lets trail on her way to the sink.
“Oh, I’ll be goddamned:

Happy Valentine’s Day!”

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2019, Ranch Journal

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ON A GRAY DAY

Posted on February 10, 2025 by | 1 comment

1.
Crows circle,
coyotes skulk
and a Red Tail watches

on a bare oak branch
for a ground squirrel
to wake and warm

atop a rock at dawn.
Everybody’s hungry
in February.

2.
Cold marble ceiling,
precursor to another
stream of storms predicted

to test the levees,
erase the landscapes
of man’s mistakes,

but likely missing
a golden opportunity
for humanity.

3.
The imbalanced weight
of man’s achievements
and herded hostilities

wobbles the planet’s
tipsy equilibrium
between war and peace,

the struggle for power
over Nature
to right herself.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry

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THE VOCAL MINORITY

Posted on January 7, 2025 by | 2 comments 

Night showers, cold damp dawn,
intense coyote octaves shrill—an eerie 
screaming claims the canyon

as I search for forgotten details 
for the morning’s branding, 
worried for baby calves

before the crew arrives
for coffee and last minute
plans.  What rarity has triggered

this assault on silence, what wild 
imperative, what joy requires
such passionate agreement?

What have I missed
not learning the language
after fifty-five years?



I really dislike word press. I have wasted too much time today simply trying to pass along a comment on your blog entry today about coyotes. Before I moved to la la land north, at the ranch I used to enjoy this vocal minority calling to each other from valley floor (even if at times it sounded as if it was coming from just outside our bedroom window) to the upper hills and then beyond into the canyons and back again. Lonely.  Eerie.  Beautiful.
Keep on writing, my friend. You weave beautiful poetry beyond telling city folks about life (mostly work) on the ranch up Dry Creek Road. 

s




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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, Ranch Journal

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