With evening G & Ts
we will stare
across the creek
at black hills,
white ash remains
cut by cowtrails—
pink phos-chek trim
between blond dry feed
until it rains
gray,
until it rains
green.
We map the burn,
watch the weather,
hope for ground soft-enough
to drive steel posts
for five barbed strands
of Red Brand
because good fences
make better neighbors
for a long time.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2019, Ranch Journal
Tagged "Creek Fire", fences, photography, poetry
Ashes, white on black
slopes, drought-dead Blue Oaks, final
portraits of a fire.
Posted in Haiku 2019, Photographs, Poems 2019, Ranch Journal
Tagged "Creek Fire", photography, poetry
It’s black early yet,
few lanterns glowing
across the quiet canyon,
drought-killed Blue Oaks:
roots simmering
in the rock-hard ground.
The wind will turn
the burnt to gray
until the rains
bring a fresh green
start—nothing
we can change.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2019, Ranch Journal
Tagged "Creek Fire", CalFire, photography, poetry
Night stalks the day,
tracks the last light
over the edge
of our horizons
a slice in time away
from calvy cows
that graze the gloaming
before bedtime,
rest upon the hard
clay ground of home.
Among the gray hairs,
walkers and wheelchairs,
our game of chance:
the heartbeat’s thrill
with wild circumstance.
Photo: Brazil Photos/LightRocket via Getty Images
you lift your faces
and let it drench you in evening prayer.
– George Perreault (“April Winslow: Waiting on a Rain”)
Nothing good about the Amazon
burning better than expected:
a fifth less oxygen,
drier Gulf storms
from the llano to California
to stream our cheeks with prayer.
Before we traded ranches,
your mother witched a well
that artesianed into a trough
to water cattle, that overflowed
to fill a pond twenty-four seven
without turning a wheel.
Before we traded ranches
you had tenants
that wanted more
to irrigate cannabis
with a pump and gas generator—
pulled granite sand and pebbles
to dam the crack
where water ran underground
from Sierra peaks
to the wellhead freely.
Married now to a generator,
storage tank and pump,
I pack gas and oil,
carry electrical testers,
tools and spare capacitors,
for a second well we drilled
too deep for solar
to water cattle in a trough
that never overflows.
The Emperor vines were a hundred years old
when I was a teen learning to irrigate
granddad’s thirsty vineyard, whole pump
down five furrows—hope and wait.
You had to fill the deep sand up
before it carried water down the vine row.
In the old days, Coffelts spread the pump out,
then went fishing in the pines for two weeks.
Much has changed the way we think
about water—wells deeper, trees on drip.
The earth sinks with the weight of farming
until nothing’s left to keep it up.
Much like cattle,
the sounds we make
speak more than words
that often skirt the truth—
that cannot release
the real stress like
the intonations of
a moan or groan.
Between us
another language
animals comprehend,
and when surprised
or truly overjoyed,
a melody of accents—
sweet poetry that will
never grace a page.
reblogged from December 24, 2017
Blueberry moonrise
never in the same place twice—
acorns ripe in oak trees.
Had we fish to stupefy
with turkey mullein seeds
the late rains have left
in turquoise waves
above the knees—
we could be native.
Instead we feed
the squirrels beneath
these fuzzy canopies
where shotgun hunters
will wait for mourning dove
to light and leave.
Croton setigerus: a native of the western United States, and found commonly from southern California north to Washington, particularly in the more arid locations away from the coast.
I don’t ever remember Turkey Mullein, or Dove Weed, so tall and thick and claiming such large tracts of dry summer pasture, or its color quite so blue—worth journaling, I think.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2019, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dove Weed, photography, poetry, Turkey Mullein, wildflowers
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