Tag Archives: poetry

It’s not the cool coast of California
with cypress leaning leeward, but
the tomatoes and squash love

this year’s pleasant inland temperatures,
unaware of summer in the San Joaquin.
We, on the other hand, cringe

ahead of time, remembering so vividly
that it spoils our vacation. But nowadays,
we never know what’s coming, which

unwritten script awaits in ambush.
Escaping to the garden, hopefully I
bloom with our optimistic vegetables,

imagining tasty, blue ribbon fruit—
careful not to be so careless
as to step on a rattlesnake.

The canyon quiet by the fourth dawn, heads buried
beneath the waves of blond dry grasses, behind spears
of wild oats arching empty husks, first-time mothers

grazing like we expect our perfect world to be.
No plaintive calls, no searching draws, no panicked
pleading to canyon walls for their weaned calves

they have almost forgotten. We are relieved
of guilt, unburdened from their guttural mourning,
the harsh cacophony of maternity, of eighty

broken bonds rasping, wild wailing around us.
Aging skin grows thin imagining the magic
of companionship delivered from the womb,

of nursing, of mothering the first-born and losing it.
Emptiness and sorrow for a lost friend gone,
these cows giving voice to my unusual confusion.

Spring lingers into May, empty
blue clouds in a pink sea at dawn—
an ancient armada claiming sky,

this canyon that yesterday’s Navy jets
left thundering, practicing, maneuvering
for war. Here along the shrinking creek

Egrets and Killdeer wade, we measure
global tension, hear its roar, primitive
and deafening with no retreat.

Ants in the anthill, we feel the quake
of giant footfalls, cloven hooves
and rubber tread approaching, yet

stick to the business of our survival
unabashed, sorting the wild grain
packed by caravans for winter’s cold.

Our one mind is not cluttered
with news beyond our borders,
the fallen oak and swollen creek—

of all the peripheral shenanigans
delegated to orators and generals,
to pundits and playwrights busy

with dramatic scripts to entertain
themselves. We serve another purpose
dedicated to feeding ourselves.