Tag Archives: photography

Growing into horseback dreams
takes time and dedication for little girls,
pushing cattle where the feed can be

heavenly on the good years—a home
for heifers and their first calf—
we’ve watched her grow to be good help,

to hold her own over years
of pillowed nights imagining—all
come true right before our eyes.

                                                 for Allie

                                        It is time for us to kiss the earth again.
                                             – Robinson Jeffers (“Return”)

We have wandered far from the roots
of our sustenance, the bloom and fruit—
with rain the eager volunteers of stalk

and seed and the herds of harvesters
that circumnavigate uneven ground
and till tomorrow’s table full. We have

lost touch, lost taste, lost our senses
for living well, close to the smell of dirt
from whence we’ve come and will rest

in the end. Instead we let our minds’
appetite for the scandalous fill hungry heads
with acrimony and self-righteousness

to feed another uncivil war. It’s time
for us to stop—take the time to kiss
this earth dressed in her many splendors.

Quietly reading cattle
and one another,
prolonged moments
when words come too late
to be applicable—

no room for poetry,
no time to edit—
it is a dance instead,
a gentle rhythm
of man and beast

expressed privately,
a sixth sense
we take for granted
after a lifetime
sorting cattle.

First cup of coffee
and Nicorette gum rush
to startle the senses
still slumbering
in the shadows of dawn.

The slow retreat of dreams
replayed on hillsides,
circumstances stashed
among others
in the rocks and crevices,

deep within hidden canyons
worn by centuries of rain,
for safekeeping—
unforgiving places
you may not want to ride,

reserved spaces
collecting wild regrets
with reveries—
first drafts
of uncompleted poetry.

Night shrinks into shadows rising
to ridges trimmed in gold, the day
awakes with or without us.