Silt and sediment have settled
with the senses, clear water calm
in the canyon, low whispers
of the Solstice among the cobbles,
the easy pulse of our lifeblood
returns the churned edges
of the creek to house-hunting
killdeer pairs, not quite ready
to commit to gravelly real estate,
not quite sure of the shoreline
as we gather for another branding:
little bunch of big calves, slow
dance of old people and horses,
buck and bawl of calves before
the fiery altar of yesteryear.
Everyone’s got a job on the ground,
in the smoke, in the canyon, dancing
in the branding pen—syringes, taggers,
knives and irons—stepping ‘round
fat calves stretched one after another
before finding their mothers waiting
at the gate for children after school.
The smart and hard-to-gather
black white-faced cow looks
a little rough in your cell phone
photo, but after twenty-two years
she knows the routine—bringing
her last year’s calf you missed
to the corrals for weaning.
for Kenny & Virginia
We replay the day
of branding calves, glad
your horse has healed
beneath me strong—
the feel of the rope
remembered as our eyes
follow the eagle’s flight
low across the green
trolling for ground squirrels
busy with housekeeping,
absorbing the sun
after months of rain.
He stops mid-air
on his second pass,
falls back and plunges
into the grass, wings
shielding warmth within
his taloned grasp
as we talk and share
binoculars, checking on
life in this canyon—
of going nowhere
like the eagle
already home.
A beautiful day for a branding at Steve and Jody Fuller’s place on Dry Creek. Just up the road, we arrived while the crew was sorting cows from calves, hoping to keep the day’s work light for Robbin’s horse Bart who has been off a year to heal torn tendons—one of those freak accidents incurred, we believe, while he was playing in the pasture—the horse she lets me brand on. Lately, she has been testing him with some easy days successfully, and it was time try him back in the branding pen.
When I was younger, I craved to go to brandings as much for the bravado and camaraderie of this community as to rope calves. But in recent years, as my knees have gotten worse, about the only time I’m horseback is to help the neighbors brand, my gesture to repay them for helping us mark our calves every year. At times, it got to be work I endured.
For the past six months, however, I have been dreaming of horses and my knees don’t hurt as much when I ride as when I walk. To feel Bart’s strength under me as we led that first calf out was exhilarating, and to be able to free my mind of his physical soundness and concentrate on the feel of my rope became so much fun that I felt young again. Much of the credit I give to Robbin’s horse, he fits me well—yet knowing, too, that much of it just plays pleasantly in an old man’s mind.
Smoke in the air,
shade of this oak and sycamore
sixty years ago,
I pushed calves
to the iron roper:
pivoting table, rope and pulley
for vaccination, castration,
swallowfork and a brand
before they got big—
fifty head,
two men and a boy
in a short morning.
A counter-intuitive art
staying close
to save your shins,
yet keep the shit
on your jeans
to a minimum—
good practice
for a kid on the way
to become a man.
Winter’s long-entangled dance
carefree of leaves for centuries
beckons partners of the flesh—
a mood rooted in this ground
of fortitude that rules the air
we breathe, the space between
the touch of branches. Slow
gather of cattle among them—
graceful rhythm for a branding.
Where the eye is drawn
the gods live and cattle graze
mostly undisturbed.
Fuzzy hillsides float
upside down since the drought,
since the dry and dusty waterholes
overflowed with more rain
than we dared pray—as if
the machinery of the gods
locked long before
the celestial mechanics came
to break the cogs loose.
It is a wonder how
these miracles and mistakes
seem upon reflection.
So much rain the Sabbaths seem
like any other day, banked dreams
and basic routines squeezed
between storms, while the hard
work waits beyond in time:
opaque weeks ahead crossing
an angry creek when the melt
of soggy hills sets hard enough
to ride, to gather for brandings
saved for sunny days. Until then,
we believe what we see—watch
the morning sky and pray.
On February 2, 2017, Andy Wilkinson delivered the Keynote Address to the 33rd National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. Addressing this year’s theme of ‘story’, his poetic treatise on the creative process received a standing ovation and is now available from Dry Crik Press in book form.
ISBN-10: 1883081106
ISBN-13: 978-1883081102
50 pages
INTRODUCTION
For a long time now, I have been studying and thinking on story and narration, mostly in terms of how they are fundamental to creative process. So when asked to deliver the keynote address for the 2017 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering – with its theme being storytelling – I jumped at the chance. I chose poetry and song over prose, both to honor the substance and history of the Gatherings and to force myself to a finer, deeper understanding of the topic and task.
Then, all the while I was writing, an already-divided nation split even wider, adding not only a new perspective to the work, but also an urgency. For reconciliation, I now believe, is itself a creative process, one without beginning or end, inseparable from story and narration. And that, in turn, gives me hope for a kinder world.
My assignment from the Western Folklife Center also required that I write an essay for the event program, which I used as an opportunity to flesh-out the least-accessible part of the poem, that being the intimate relationship with the sciences and story and narration.
I mean for both essay and poem to be read, and sung, aloud. The line breaks, spacings, and archaic punctuation are there to facilitate oral performance, not for style and certainly not to please the eye. You are welcome to supply your own melody.
Andy Wilkinson
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