We come naked and wet
into a place knowing nothing,
blood stirring cooler
under rough tongues,
familiar reverberations
of outside sounds
clearing our coats of afterbirth,
cleansing the scent that draws
the cleanup crews on this earth
hungry for work, before
we ever nurse, before
we stand and step
up to the plate, fill ourselves
and face new lessons
best we can. Slowly we learn
to keep the faith
and our opinions
to ourselves.
I realize that in terms of body and spirit,
body grows sick while spirit’s immune,
– Po Chü-i (“Climbing Mountains in Dream”)
Like a wall, hooks in hand,
I’ve scaled bales of hay stacked
too far off the ground to fall
for nearly fifty winters, boot toes
feeling for a crack and hang
while synapse talks to flesh—
a longer conversation now
for this ascension. I can fly
in my dreams, scramble
like a squirrel up a tree.
Awake: my spirit intact, in touch
with heart and mind’s belief
in these old knees they will escape
after the truck is loaded, cattle
fed—when the work is done.
Late spring rains last into October,
empty-headed wild oats bow
to a southwest wind suggesting change
from broiling days—maybe rain.
Snakes crawl out from under shade,
backs to the sun, warm their bellies
in fine trail dust. Blue Oaks shed
large dark acorns glinting
in dry leaves like burnished gems
and we are rich, breathe deep relief
as fresh calves find steady legs
to run without direction, learn to stop.
We gladly give all up to chance
and certain change believing
this is the time we live for.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Blue Oak, Calves, photography, poetry, rain, weather, wildlife
Half a mountain slipped away
to move the river south, left
alluvium of clay and granite rock—
a good spring in a steep draw
collecting stories at a pause
with brittle bones and rattlesnakes
for spice—half a century saved
to hunt and wander from the flats,
to ride to gather heifers with my father,
all the alliterative murmurs
that damned me and God
when the wind is almost right.
Half a mountain slipped away
to gather by myself, holding
highlights of the boy I used to be.
Weekly Photo Challenge: ‘Nostalgia’
1.
I am lost in a blond pasture
of cows with calves,
lone silhouettes under oaks
stressed by years of drought—
or nurseries: black lumps
around a cow—
the expectant gathered
under sycamores watching
babies steal the show.
2.
Hanging in the leaves,
estrogen
rubs off on me
each pair bonding
differently—
love’s rough tongue
or murmuring song,
some taught to follow
the swing of an udder.
3.
Closer with each visit
we become family
with gesture and tone—
all the poetry
unnecessary
from now on.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, photography, poetry
Summer breezes comb
late spring rains of golden hair,
fine-stemmed wild oats ripened
in the rocks with a trace of lichen
rouge for looks—our sexy
centerfold to hang and frame
in the back of our minds,
our cluttered caves of thought,
to remember her by.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, photography, poetry, rain, weather
But God himself comes often and stays long,
when the castrati’s singing disturbs Him.
– Ranier Maria Rilke (“The Voices”)
Within the quietude of dawn
streaked in yellow flame
between charred black shadows
when the sun peeks low beneath
the branches shedding leaves,
I hear voices in the canyon,
from the ridges and the draws,
of the generations gathered
where women left their track
ground in stone, and men
built barns and fences,
some yet leaning into time
unknown, for a different breed
of cattle and of dreams—
a chorus clear and strong.
And all the working hands
that left no mark upon the land
they still inhabit singing
harmony and peace
within the quietude of dawn
streaked in yellow flame.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016
Tagged A Voice for the Voiceless, Dry Creek, photography, poetry
All this time, decades of learning and relearning
reapplied to new devices designed to save time—
to bank, spend or squander somewhere in the future
with no guarantees made selfish sense, a singular
detachment from the congested urgencies swirling
like autumn’s colored leaves in a quest of rest
and peace. How he craved the storm’s building
energies, the dark electricity thundering rain
to erase time’s tracks, that might freeze the moment
into days and weeks. Old flesh come alive
with the prospect of starting over again, cotyledons
of grass for cows and calves—a refreshed relief.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Terri Drewry photo
Long shadows on blond feed tall,
standing skeletons of oaks from drought,
the gray cow caught talking with an iPhone
to her new, silver-belly calf.
No audio, too far to catch the vocabulary
lesson, the inflection of each murmur
into song, the guttural beginnings of all words—
a universal language of basic sounds
with deep meanings that defy time
and cultures, that survive the latest plague
of progress and the genius of science—
no better teacher than a mother cow.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Blue Oak, Calves, cows, Drought, Paregien Ranch, photography, poetry
Coyotes connect beneath a Harvest Moon risen
to make light of night shadows, young yip solos
rush into choruses that pull at dog hearts at work—
MPs on patrol, to join them. The wet stinking green
of your jungle war, I think of you often now, pushing
sod at home forever wounded, a momentary flash
of flesh the earth is absorbing, you could not end it—
not even with poetry, though we tried and cried
over miles of lines and poles to your barricade
of stacked straw bales, trailer camped alone
in snow, to dig your way out with words—
with cowboy metaphors for a broken heart.
You see, my friend, it has become a business
advertising fear enough to make us cower
to power and profit, the ultimate redeemer,
the sanctification we endorse to be left alone
with all our hungers satisfied, give or take
a life or two of the fifty-seven thousand—
not the Western adventure for a young Marine
hero. Coyotes connect beneath a Harvest Moon
risen to make light of night shadows before dawn.
for Rod
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