Tag Archives: poetry

JACK OF ALL TRADES

Posted on December 15, 2022 by | 2 comments

 

 

Inside, the basic tools,

wrenches, pliers and ratchets

under the back seat

 

to take things apart

and put back together

fixed, or so we hope

 

when working on ourselves—

but only if we know

how things work.

 

 

 

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MONDAY AT THE WATER TROUGH

Posted on December 13, 2022 by | Leave a comment

 

 

 

A mile from any cattle

a gang of three bulls

unloaded at work

on Friday, cows

strung out on hay

before it rained

and muddied roads

to not haul them,

were sparring on Saturday,

bawling and plowing

the new green brown

while the cows

rode one another.

 

Witness for over fifty years

I have my theories

where there is no proof,

I leap to speculation

like Sherlock Holmes

just for the entertainment.

 

The girls and babies

have climbed the mountain

for the new green

protected by old feed

to grow taller,

and the boys too cavalier

or lazy to follow after

their nine-month vacation

on alfalfa.

 

We breed for almost everything

these days: birth weights

and scrotal circumference,

marbling and tenderness,

weaning weights and dollars

(gentle purebred generations

of artificial insemination)

for everything but sex drive.

 

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal

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RETURN OF THE SHY GODDESS

Posted on December 3, 2022 by | 3 comments

 

 

Damp and cold, her breath

slips through the door cracked

to push the smell of smoke

 

through the house while it rains

lightly.  I steal deep breaths,

pretend I’m young again

 

before I light another.

Though I miss the real storms,

the overbearing trepidation

 

that escapes its banks to flood

with heroic tales and wonder

when its over, I am now lifted

 

out of time on her breath,

this gentle rain, hillsides

running green—reborn again.

 

 

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal

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SHY GODDESS

Posted on December 2, 2022 by | Leave a comment

 

 

It’s quiet now, she’s come and gone

without a sound, spent the night

without a word as we slept

 

deeply by the fire.  She kept it dark

without the stars, hid the pregnant moon

that shed the rain lightly through the clouds.

 

We don’t know her name, shy goddess—

but we will leave the light on

with pomegranate jelly at the door.

 

        –          –          –          –         –

0.63″ plus bugs

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal

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IDLE SPECULATION

Posted on November 30, 2022 by | 2 comments

 

 

An ever-play movie,

road in the distance

following the creek

            wet or dry

            up or down

 

a stream of SUVs

at 60 spaced militarily

from So Cal

to Christian camps

above Eshom

 

                      remembering Loren

                      on an ox cart load

                      of carp to dry

                      for the summer

 

CalFire trucks

twice a day

 

cattle neighbors,

goosenecks,

loads of hay

 

Badger locals

on shoulders parked

for first or last

cell phone service

 

sprinkled with tentative tourists

and strings of Harleys

roaring for or from

a burger at the Mountain House.

 

We believe we can read

everybody’s business

long distance.

 

 

 

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THANKSGIVING

Posted on November 24, 2022 by | 2 comments

 

A pause like prayer,

a nod to the gods holding

the wild together.

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Haiku 2022, Photographs, Poems 2022

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CREEKS

Posted on November 23, 2022 by | 4 comments

 

I crave the quiet intimacy of creeks

that feed the bigger rivers

roaring in the granite gorges

 

or widespread in redundant riffles

with nothing to say.  I rather fish

dark cutbanks and water skeeter

 

eddies frothed below white dogwoods

arching over High Sierra leaks, eclipsing

all but mottled light as I move upstream—

 

each small pool a unique realm

for browns and rainbows

grazing transparent skirts.

 

Now that I know I won’t go back,

it is not an appetite for trout

that consumes sweet memories.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022

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CHEER

Posted on November 21, 2022 by | 5 comments

 

 

Nothing near, the long-term forecast

changes on the hour as we look out

over Christmas color, out of storage early,

 

at independent calves at water,

and our persistent green still breathing

with each dawn’s dew. Almost everything

 

we need is near-at-hand before Thanksgiving

with a welcome splash of cheer

as we wait for rain, like always.

 

 

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HEARTWOOD

Posted on November 16, 2022 by | Leave a comment

 

 

 

Chain saw heavier, I cut arms

off skeletons littering pastures

and canyons after years of drought,

 

a battleground where old oaks lost

touch with water—most barkless now

tipped-over or in tangled piles

 

beneath authoritative trunks

begging purpose, begging cremation

or stacked close to the woodstove.

 

Old habits and rituals finally slow

as the limbs grow heavier despite

the pleading of the heartwood.

 

 

 

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WINTER FIRES

Posted on November 12, 2022 by | 2 comments

 

 

Color comes with cold and wet

within the canyon, even before

the creek flows or sycamores burn

 

leather brown to shed their clothes—

white bodies tangled in a pagan dance

to gods unknown.  Orioles return

 

as sparks in the brush, levity

in the pink overcast of dawn.

We glean the fallen skeletons

 

of oak and brittle manzanita

to fill the woodstove. Curious cattle

come to wonder what we’re about.

 

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