Wild entanglements
clutch the fate of the planet
with thin filament.
It was impossible to make it through the tragedy
Without poetry.
– Joy Harjo (“Becoming Seventy”)
This other world of cows and calves,
of motherhood exemplified, and bulls,
like men, trailing wire of down fences
is yet to be expected. A bumper crop
of rodents and snakes surround us,
the full moon coyote count of duets
and trios draws closer around us
in the half-light. The metaphors
and similes come easily to favor
humanity ‘midst the tragic chaos
where the latest issue of the truth
has come to be disbelieved.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2020
Tagged Covid-19, Joy Harjo, pandemic, photography, poetry, politics
Sometimes I sell ‘em ten bucks at a time, but mostly
when I give ‘em away to friends, I tell ‘em
like I tole Baxter a few months after he signed
“Croutons on a Cowpie” for me years ago in Elko
where all the cowboy singers and poets meet
in the dead of winter, everbody huggin and shakin hands
like famly, new boots and silver glinting coin piled
in rooms like warm cocoons to listen, safe from the outside
news, just to sing and tell stories with roughshod poetry.
First time I went in ’89 to read my stuff I was skairt
until I run into Ramblin Jack who I hadn’t seen since ’66
at the Ashgrove, plumb skairt ever since Sunday school
stage plays screwed my face up so tight to where
I couldn’t say my lines. But seein Jack made ever thing
all right. Now that Baxter’s older, he understands
that it was a compliment, ‘specially since he’s a vet
and knows how the body sometimes works best
when the brain is busy with something else,
busy and out of the way of regular business.
I wrote to Baxter that I’d took his book off my desk,
pulled it out from under loose stacks of poetry
for my top shelf—so I mean it when I tell ‘em
my poems are mostly short and will work best
if you take and leave ‘em in the bathroom.
for George Perreault and “Bodark County”
Posted in Poems 2020
Tagged "Bodark County", Elko, George Perreault, National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, poetry
Having slain hundreds, another battalion digs in
to undermine the well and water trough, to scout
the garden for an attack on the last tomatoes.
The quail have made a comeback in coveys,
strings of babies trailing on training wheels
making circles, mornings and evenings.
Before our eyes, another lifelong mate
in the making, Roadrunners packing lizards
and snails to their nest in prickly pear cactus.
The heavy-limbed sycamores shade a ribbon
of green along the dry creek bed, sub-irrigated
Bermuda grass a few bulls graze between bellowing.
Black cows shine on a side-hill grade, either side
of the canyon, or silhouettes in shade gossiping
and grinding cud, having shed their babies.
SUVs, RVs, camp trailers and fifth-wheels
escape the confinement of cities to dodge Covid-19
and logging trucks on a narrow mountain road
to the pines, and I don’t blame them—with
a thousand ways to go, why not migrate
where no one seems to worry about dying.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2020, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, Cover-19, photography, poetry, wildlife
There is an easy beauty in the bronze statues
dredged up from the ocean, but there is a worth
to the unshapely our sweet mind founders on.
– Jack Gilbert (“The Secret”)
Even the old fence posts, split redwood
from the coast eighty years ago,
serve a purpose more than by design,
unexpected dividends through a lifetime
that can’t be spent or bartered—saved only
in our minds. I had stopped to photograph
the White Tailed Kite’s extended hovering,
treading air against gravity while searching
dry, blond grasses for the movement of a mouse—
expending more energy, it seemed, than a rodent
could provide. My feet grow heavy now
as I circumambulate this uneven ground
following seasons of grass with cows and calves,
praying for relief of flood or drought, hoping
to generate enough to do it all over again.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2020
Tagged Calves, cattle, cows, Jack Gilbert, photography, poetry, weather
The bulb Carolyn gave you years ago
rose between three boulders
where we lay the headless rattler
to get young Katy
to pay attention—
running, dancing,
always on her toes.
Her shriek and cry
cut to our souls.
Huge, bright-orange petals,
like tongues aflame
among adolescent coals—
Summer Solstice,
105 degrees—
saved to the shade
on the cold woodstove
to bloom for days,
to hold my eye
and expose
a slice of memory.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2020, Ranch Journal
Tagged memories, photography, poetry
The future descends upon us
with new magic for old maladies,
like the greed and lust for power
science can’t dissuade or make
invisible, can’t deport to asteroids
spinning towards black holes in space.
Not even the best Boy Scouts
can be prepared for tomorrow dangling
like a spider from its thin filament
waiting for the wind to move it
towards fuzzy, unknown realms
where human nature remains the same.
Posted in Poems 2020
Tagged artist: Chesley Bonestell, human nature, poetry, politics, science
Light feet at dawn
inspect Iris and Aloe Vera
to crack shells on the rock
border between gravel and lawn.
She curtsies like a ballerina
in a low, feathered quivering,
teasing, anticipating
the dance in a garden arena.
CHORUS:
Beyond the reach of Covid-19,
the divisiveness and hate—
beyond the crazed confusion
the fools among us imitate.
Birds multiplying here to a dozen
as watchdogs for the unwanted,
the rattlesnakes and snails,
beyond the reach of poison.
CHORUS:
Beyond the reach of Covid-19,
the divisiveness and hate—
beyond the crazed confusion
the fools among us imitate.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2020
Tagged Cover-19, photography, poetry, politics, Song of our Times, wildlife
Hard to be a good guy, find
a melody for wannabe lullabies
overwhelmed by hard-rock thoughts
to make things right
or left, red or blue dominions
as if ordained by God
laughing up his sleeve
at the idiocy of humans
fashioned in his image.
We are merely ants in the anthill,
sub-atomic specks of insignificance
trying to get along—or not.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2020
The shelves of supermarkets
are dependent on farmers,
both foreign and domestic
dependent on bankers—
on tractor drivers, irrigators and brown skin labor,
both legal and illegal
looking for a better life
to fill the trucks for grocery stores
that fill our families’ bellies.
We are dependent on the weather and electricity
to pump the water
to grow the crops for harvest.
We are dependent on our phones and Internet
to keep in touch
with skewed news and friends
lest we find ourselves alone
for an hour—lest we begin
to know our minds
or even reason for ourselves.
We are dependent on the politicians
dependent on corporate donations
as they campaign to stay
close to the feed bunks,
instead of representing
the workingman trying
to pay for his consumption.
We are dependent on the planet
as we carve up the heart
of its landscape, as we spend
its resources today
instead of saving for tomorrow.
We are dependent on one another
for love and understanding,
for common sense
and compassion.
And lastly, we are dependent on God
and hope to hell
He’s paying attention.
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