Tag Archives: poetry

How many pass without notice
as if chained in black caves
away from ordinary light

dressed in the shadows
of where we’ve been, shades
of time filtered into the present,

the parade of memories
and forgotten faces begging
a name—how many pass

us by?

There are boulders even
in dry creek beds, obstacles
for water to flow around – make
the sounds that soothe us so.

Easily identified, some are bolted down
like the mountains with sharpened edges
eerily singing new refrains each night.
We know them. Sometimes we curse them.

We even pray to God to remove them
from our channeled way of going, yet
not believing the music we cherish most
comes from rubbing against them.

                  (Poems from Dry Creek, 2008)

© 2017 Dry Crik Press

Noting repeated references to ‘granite’ in my poetry, a dear friend emailed an audio link of Thobar Phadraig reading his poem “Stone” that reminded me of “Stone Poems” by Douglas Skrief published by Starhaven (London, 2009), who also published my “Poems from Dry Creek” in 2008. Relating this ‘granite’ thread to Robbin last evening, she remembered my poem “Obstacles” and the circumstances that spawned it.

The Poem Notes from that book: Written while haggling over the language of a conservation easement intended to preserve the ranch, this simple poem was, and continues to be, a solid touchstone for difficult times. After approximately three years of emotional discussions, we abandoned the concept to concentrate our energies on improving the ranch and our cowherd – tending to the business we know best. Included in “Still in the Mountains,” 2004.

Our notion of a good poem is not dated, so we have decided to post some of my earlier poetry here from time to time.

Exposed slopes sculpted by eons of storm,
like smooth flesh cut by canyons, worn
wrinkle into wrinkle, creek to river run,

speak quietly of patience on a Sabbath
after-rain, after yet another cleansing,
glint of dew upon the green at dawn.

When the Bird and Animal People
created man, gathered up the earth
to mold in their hands, they thought big

at first, but left the hills undone for us
to live within. You can feel mountains
breathe, hear the heart beat underneath

your feet, and in the moonrise see
movement in their sleep, waiting
to awake some day when we are gone.