Clouds cling low,
I tend the fire:
stir red coals—dry
branch of manzanita
alongside oak,
crack of air
to the woodstove—
play solitaire
and wait for words
that hide behind
naked sycamores
along the creek
too deep to cross,
the flood of news
too much
for pleasant poetry.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2017, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, news, photography, poetry
That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.
Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors,
This republic, Europe, Asia.
Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.
You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
From Dante’s feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.
Let the boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.
A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told
a thousand times becomes the truth.
– Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, Nazi Germany
Remove yourself.
Go outside alone.
Find a flowerbed,
some earth to turn
with your hands.
See history fall
between your fingers:
old leaves and roots,
bugs and worms—
this is truth.
Out here,
we watch money
come and go,
but a man’s word
is all he is,
his handshake bond—
once broken
not depended on,
of little use.
Twice broken
he is scorned,
ostracized and ignored.
Life must be too easy
to entertain deceit
on stage, to play
make-believe
with humanity.
Out here, we know
the ending—
but not what happens
in-between.
for Leonard Durso
I regret to report the creek
is still too high to cross,
running muddy with white caps
where summer cobbles baked
beneath bleached moss
housing aquatic bugs—little
towns anticipating rain—
a month’s work on the other side:
clearing roads of trees, fences
under limbs, slick black calves
waiting to be stretched for an iron
and I’m inside polishing poetry
instead of oiling my saddle
I’m almost too old to ride.
No one behind your desk
to report to for twenty years,
no one to argue how to spend
time and money improving
how to get the work done
when the creek subsides.
I’ve yet to learn
where the tree frogs go,
four years drought
between symphonies.
I regret to report I’m tired
of the world beyond our fences
where there is no truth,
no beauty left in the storm
of news I’m addicted to
waiting for my daily fix,
each outrageous episode
is drama enough
to keep from thinking,
to keep from working
to keep from wanting
anything more than
where the tree frogs go.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2017, Ranch Journal
Tagged photography, poetry, rain, tree frogs
Their song has survived hard ground,
the dry and dusty years, the dead and dying
trees without moisture, brittle broken roots—
sopranos, altos and baritones, a gleeful
impromptu chorus praising a month of rain,
they have survived sixty-six million years,
the asteroid’s collision, climate change
to serenade outside my window—symphonies
all this time before we walked this earth.
Like an old girlfriend,
she has moved in—first
to rise and last to bed, she stays
up to keep us from working
with more rain at once
than the earth can drink
and we say nothing, too
superstitious and polite
to complain within earshot—
with four year’s dust still
clogging veins and arteries,
we grin like idiots
stranded on an island,
water all around. In 1867,
the chickens starved in trees
and they gave boat rides,
water taxis up and down
Main Street for weeks
bringing food and freight
in from Stockton. She’s
been a good houseguest.
We’ve been busy returning our replacement heifers to the Wagyu bulls after we could ford the creek, 40 or so scattered over our neighbors with no watergaps between us. Moving some cows and calves away from the creek this morning before the first of three storms arrives to linger through Tuesday, about 3 more inches of rain predicted, but the the bulk of the storms are aimed at the wet and icy Northwest. Here we go again.
High cold wet fog after rain
puts a lid on summer’s cauldron
earth wet to rock, each crease
leaks rivulets into the canyon
to join a muddy creek.
Curiosity burns in his belly,
lone winter coyote edging closer
by different approaches
mid-day or night—
dogs hold him at bay
until he leaves the edge
of our territory.
Young downstream cowboys try
clay flat, pickup, gooseneck
just inside the gate, diggings
piled behind the drive wheels
as I pass by.
Twenty years ago
I’d have stopped to help
got stuck
and they learn nothing.
Two hours back from town
with a burn permit,
they’re hooking up
on muddy asphalt.
High cold wet fog after rain
creek too high to cross
I clear my desk, bag years
of paper files for proof
of our busyness
for the burn pile:
dry summer prunings
up in smoke
lost in fog.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2017, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, photography, poetry, weather, winter
When the clouds form low,
the gods of rain climb onboard
to recuperate.
Dry Creek is running over 500 cfs this morning @ 6:00 a.m., after over an inch of rain in the past two days, over 6” for the first half of January—10 consecutive days of measurable precipitation—it’s wet! Any plans to cross the creek to fix fences and sort cattle won’t happen today. Furthermore, the moisture is deep, a good thing, but the only vehicle we have to get to the fence work will be the Kubota and I’d prefer to wait until Dry Creek is running less than 100 cfs.
Oh, I know the stories when Earl McKee and his sorrel horse swam the channel to ride five miles to free cattle locked in his Greasy corrals; or Clarence Holdbrooks swimming his red horse to move cattle stranded on the other side of the creek fifty years ago. They are my heroes still. All we have at risk with our current cattle mix-up is that our replacement heifers are running with the neighbor’s steers, at a time of the month, unfortunately, when the majority will be cycling, yet not exposed to the Wagyu bulls. But no livestock is at risk.
According to the 10-day forecast, we have a 5-day window to dry out before the next series of storms begin on the 18th, then 5 more days projected to leave 2.5” of rain. But no one’s complaining, yet, no one’s hollered ‘uncle’.
Not unlike the drought, Robbin and I have been making contingency plans. It dawned on me last night that making a ranch work within all the variables of the weather requires some hands-on creativity—that the art of cattle ranching starts with thinking well-outside the box. C’est la vie!
Weekly Photo Challenge: ‘Ambience’
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, photography, poetry, rain, weather, weekly-photo-challenge
drycrikjournal 