Tag Archives: poetry

WINTER PASSION

 

 

No spring chicken, she’s let herself go

wild after a decade of waterless summers

as if saving up the emptiness to fill at once—

 

every wrinkle in these hills oozing rivulets

into foaming cappuccino creeks cresting

towards runaway rivers spilling, flooding

 

valley towns and farm ground with lakes

and bogs—all the years of prayers answered

with much more passion than we wanted.

 

 

 

 

INTRINSIC HABIT

 

 

 

Too many years courting goddesses,

genuflecting at the foot of ridgetops:

oak trees sharp and close enough to touch

 

to beg relief—to even entertain

such shameful blasphemy, such

feeble will to forever lose their ear.

 

Every river canyon churns to fill

and spill its reservoirs, white-capped

Sierras stacked with two-year’s snowpack

 

awaiting summer’s melt to flood the flats

and yet I can’t concede what is not me:

always ready, waiting for a good-hard rain.

 

 

OUR SHORT MOMENT

 

 

We have left our mark on this ground:

the house, the pipe, the horses,

cattle, shop and barn—and the avenues

 

between them—that were not here

forty years ago where the deer lay down

beside the road. Our tracks everywhere

 

we worked details into grazing hillsides

and raising calves you’ll never see

before they are erased by time’s storms

 

and someone else’s appetites and dreams.

Our short moment among the mortar holes

and pictographs that will outlive our presence.

 

 

FLOODWATER

 

The creek-flood bears no malice

as it carves its way to a flatland war

unearthing trees and buried cobbles

 

of past centuries—laying waste

to man’s old and new improvements.

It cares no more than the clouds and rain

 

that feed its energy, its violence

and its thunderous roar.  Nor does it

bestow charity to soothe our minds

 

and flesh—it has no agenda, no noble

purpose nor dishonorable motives.

It just is what it always has been.

 

 

THE GRAY DAYS

 

Every day is a holiday

when you can’t remember

what day it is—

 

when you can’t leave the driveway,

can’t leave the blacktop,

when it’s too wet to plow

 

for weeks at a time

as the creek rises and falls

with Atmospheric Rivers.

 

The finches bring branches

of dry debris, Roadrunners

chaunt solicitous love songs

 

despite the divine disasters

that temper mortal urgencies

a week away from the Equinox.

 

 

 

SHELTERED IN PLACE

 

 

                        Highwater debris,

                        enough to measure peak flow

                        gauging stations miss.

 

We’ve begun naming creeks

that flood the dry draws,

pull nominees from our histories

while exchanging guffaws.

 

We have become the helpless

prisoners of the weather,

of flatland floods and saturated mud,

resisting cabin fever.

 

Roads and fences, trees to cut,

our work comes to a halt—

no need to fuss, cows don’t need us

with water, grass and salt.

 

 

DESERT DUELLER

 

 

We never quite know

how our negligence

is ultimately received.

 

Somewhere upstream,

a tire too close to the creek,

became humor and irony

 

tumbling downstream

to balance and settle

with the flood debris—

 

a perfect amount

of seasoning for

a State of Emergency.

 

BOBCAT

 

 

Safe arms of an oak

support an unruffled pause

for all but the dogs.

 

 

 

MOTHER NATURE 101

 

 

1.

 

Thrum upon the roof,

the creek stretches loudly now,

rain streams day and night

 

from heaven’s dark skies—

a decade of dreams and prayers

descend upon us.

 

 

2.

 

Our totems come and go to rest

before our eyes, eagles and herons

inspect our souls without asking,

 

families of quail titter at our feet,

antlers tilt to consider our hunger

in places we mark in our memories.

 

 

3.

 

She doesn’t care, has no compassion

for our self-indulgence, shapes her track

of least resistance embracing landscapes,

 

rearranging the gravity of facts

we must endure when she leaves us

with fresh metaphors into the future.

 

 

SULPHUR PEAK 3,448′

 

Your robe’s frozen sleeve

reaches the creek once again,

my unending friend,

 

you carry both storm

and heaven on your shoulders

when I reflect up—

 

face unwavering

beneath sun and starlit night

always in the morning.

 

______________________________________

 

It’s been interesting weather, now half-way through our rainy season, over 18 inches of rain after a decade of drought.  Already whispers from the loudest drought complainers for relief as these hills leak crystal rivulets again. 

 

We lost a month in time in January to the Atmospheric River during branding season, and now with nearly 3 inches in the past 3 days and 3 inches more forecast for the next three, it will be at least a week before we can get to our upper country to brand the last bunch, putting us close to the middle of March.  These calves will be big, a handful.

 

The Paregien Ranch ranges from 2,000 to 2,600 with its own light blanket of snow now, time-released moisture soaking into the clay and granite ground that leaks down the smooth rock waterfalls of Ridenhour Canyon, adding to Dry Creek that peaked at 684 cfs last night, that probably washed out some of our watergaps replaced after January’s peak flow over 3,500 cfs.

Job security, but patience until we can get there—you can’t fight Mother Nature, just try to adapt and face the consequences—fully enjoy her luxuriant and persistent presence after so much needed moisture.