I could have been born a bird
on a gravel island in the creek,
learn to hide in a small world
before I found the gentle grace
to fly, hop rock to rock
as mother drew intruders off
with shoreline flaps of her white
petticoats, feigning injury,
crying seriously in low circles.
I could have been born a bird
without certainty, without worries
about my death or taxes.
Once touched, all made clear
by the angel’s showered jewels
shimmering with truth.
Posted in Haiku 2016, Photographs
Tagged flower-friday, haiku, Ithuriel's Spear, photography, poetry, Triteleia laxa, wildflowers
We were talking conservation easement
restrictions, all the rules for a cash
injection to hold the ranch together
into the future, terms and acronyms
for multisyllabic concepts applied
to ground grazed for a century
and a half, nice young girl and I,
when the deal broke over cordwood,
dead-standing Blue Oaks for our woodstove—
peckerwood in perpetuity. My good
intentions shot full of holes,
I am relieved with each one I see.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged conservation easement, photography, poetry
After the war,
hats and horses,
black and white heroics
helped us forget
Hitler and Hiroshima,
helped heal and shape
half of humanity hooked
on Hollywood cowboys.
I lived close to the stars,
slept near the fire,
drank from a stream
of tomorrows
that have arrived
twenty thousand times
working towards
this moment in a poem:
glimpses of reckless youth
and luck at the Longbranch
replaced by another tribe
of younger men
wild, woolly and tough.
With each wind-whipped rumor,
I worry more about them
than I did myself.
Slow to leave after
a night rain, the clouds still want
to party at dawn.
Loose upon this earth
we mark our presence
like dogs at dusk,
blaze trees
and build fence
to claim our place
in time, to sleep
at peace
with the outside world
of Pharisees gone wild.
We fill their bowls
with beef.
We know the ground
as well as we want,
its traps a horseback
o’er its rocky face
we flew with flapping
wings of youth
we gave names to—
plus to the peaceful
we are drawn to
where the cattle
always feel
like gathering.
Seasons of instruction
in the senses, it knows
what the future does not.
To leave this world in spring,
they have gone on
to grace another space—
hob-nob with the gods
as we remain remembering
to the soothing sound of rain
dark upon our roofs.
Cut-off low out of the south
will linger into a gray
daybreak, and I will absorb
their passing with welcome nods
of understanding
when I turn myself loose
to gaze and search for sign
upon this landscape.
Song and laughter
from this earth,
Vaya con Dios!
for Pat and Merle
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016
Tagged Merle Haggard, Pat Richardson, photography, poetry
Sweet water rises here
from forgotten depths—
Sierra snowmelt streaming
granite cracks under pressure,
underground waterways
clogged with huge trout.
A near escape as the earth
cooled to mark the place.
Words leak out, collect
on paper, fill a trough
open to native myths
locked in rock.
for Sylvia
drycrikjournal 