Tag Archives: poetry

EVENING RAINBOW

Posted on October 16, 2016 by | 6 comments

 

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Into thirsty flesh,
we inhale the smell of rain
upon dry grasses.

 

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge 2: ‘local’

 

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Posted in Haiku 2016, Photographs, Ranch Journal

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HALLELUJAH

Posted on October 15, 2016 by | Leave a comment

 

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Out of the southwest, wind
down the dry draw damp—
dust devils dance across
ground grown bare by cows

meeting near the water trough
with the run and buck of calves
finding all four legs to stir
hope for nothing certain:

this first chance of rain.
Time may seem to fly
now that we are older,
or plodding slower shade

to shade with less idleness
to fill with complaint—summer
long and hot, but shorter than
our partnership with drought.

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: ‘local’

 

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GOLDEN RULE

Posted on October 13, 2016 by | 2 comments

 

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I would like to say that thinking
like cattle is preferable to humans
who need immediate answers

and science to prove them right,
whose urgency demands action
and reaction until the herd’s

thundering hooves stampede
the earth into atomic dust.
Cattle would not press any matter

enough to destroy themselves,
but rather play domestic than wild
given time to weigh your wishes.

Making sense of them you must
be cordial, shed your fear and anger—
try to remember the Golden Rule.

 

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TO A POET

Posted on October 11, 2016 by | 2 comments

 

My reading slow, I hold the sounds
scratched on paper, hear a song
that draws me near, behind your eyes—

ten thousand rivers fall in moonlight,
all the stars like cold fire streaming
from the mountains and you are there.

Beyond them, beyond you and I,
we cannot hear or see, even in daylight,
swept up in the Canyon Wren’s cascades

falling into pools lapping mossy rocks.
My empty mind is full with your eyes
on paper I can revisit any time of day.

 

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Posted in Poems 2016

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BULL OF THE WOODS

Posted on October 10, 2016 by | 3 comments

 

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He wears his father’s stamp
at five weeks, biggest bull calf
in a family of cows and babies

ready to hold his herd against
anyone of any breed
at first light crawling out

from under the black screeches
and howls of darkness beyond
the moving shadows of a half-moon.

We are born with it, you know—
instinct deep within the soft marrow
of our bones living with wild

uncertainty until our fathers
return home. And we will follow,
watch and try to help them work

all day long, learn what we have yet
to grow into—and sleep bone-weary
with pastoral dreams of peace.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

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AFTER BIRTH

Posted on October 9, 2016 by | Leave a comment

 

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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.

 

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THE WORK

Posted on October 6, 2016 by | 7 comments

 

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                                        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.

 

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TO LIVE FOR

Posted on October 4, 2016 by | Leave a comment

 

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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.

 

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POGUE CANYON

Posted on October 1, 2016 by | 8 comments

 

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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’

 

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VISITING FAMILY

Posted on September 28, 2016 by | Leave a comment

 

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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.

 

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