She knows now,
how to be a mother—
shield innocence
with shadow
and sharp eye,
give meaning
to the soft talk
that reverberates
with familiarity
upon each breath,
the language of cows:
the umbilical stretched
from the warm womb
to grow and graze
a dry and brittle world.
Born in a drought,
she can be a mother
in any kind of weather.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016
Tagged Calves, cows, Drought, photographs, poetry, rain, weather
Heads down, our future grazes green
on the edge of time, on ground
the river met with Dry Creek—
all the round cobbles mined
to build the county seat gone wild
with willows and cottonwoods,
natives claiming space we named
between the Kaweah and Wutchumna
Hill. Nothing is the same for us
or them as they mature to become cows.
Heads down, it is easy to forget
to look up at where we’ve come from.
Weekly Photo Challenge: ‘Edge’
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged cows, Dry Creek, Kaweah River, photography, poetry, weekly-photo-challenge, Wuchumna, Yokuts
Progress parallels the creek,
follows a crumbling dirt track paved
up canyon past the end of power poles
and the double yellow line,
the busy bulk of it beyond
the hazy ridgeline—
beyond thinking past water
when the creek is dry
in September.
Caravans of Christians
craving altitude, the new shine
of fifth-wheels pulling for the pines—
the guttural rumble, leather herds
of Harleys and the bright spandex
of cyclists pass us by
as if we were a landscape
to endure along the way
to something better.
O wonder!
How many goodly creature are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t.
– William Shakespeare (“The Tempest”)
I am too old to vote
for the least offensive—
too old to believe
raucous rhetoric,
philosophies that fan
the flames of fear
to obtain heaven
early on this earth.
I have seen enough
bigotry and greed
squirming beneath the raiment
of righteousness—
that need evil foes to exist,
when war is peace.
All the good in this world
is not for sale, cannot be carved
from the heart of humanity,
or extinguished by authority—
it casts no vote but to survive
our nasty campaigns and elections.
Hot days fade early,
black breathes cool upon thin skin
as old men leave town’s comforts
to drive the canyon, narrow
road and sharp curves gone
straight in ’68, leaving legends
on slopes of scree
where the Model T coup
teetered on two wheels
in high school, you asking
where you could have died
half-century back.
This ground has not forgotten,
each rock removed exposes
another memory
of our dead history
into a landslide
of stories hidden
and turned loose on our tongues—
old men exploring
where they’ve come from.
Language without words
across the hillsides floating
anyone can read.
From a small puddle,
beyond too huge to compute
or be frightened by.
She does not know
we plugged the leak
for cattle, does not care
we watch her drink
when the tank is full
and the generator’s purr
has quit to draw her
clean water at noon—
a tune she can dance to.
Too much in the sun
by early morning, tiptoe—
don’t wake the big boys!
You ask why I’ve settled in these emerald mountains:
I smile, mind of itself perfectly idle, and say nothing.
Peach blossoms drift streamwater away deep in mystery
here, another heaven and earth, nowhere people know.
– Li Po (“Mountain Dialogue”)
To and from their peach tree roost
the quail trail in at dawn and dusk
like heavy heifers on parade
from shade to water trough
before they graze the waves of dry,
blond hillsides bent to a breeze.
An evening tree frog leaves a centerpiece
of succulents at six o’clock, short hops
to table’s edge and leaps for misters
on timers, scales the green swords of iris
for the wet scent of lavender and more—
crawls back at dawn like a drunk home.
We meet the mystery of nowhere
in a slow dance of seasonal cycles
returning new over and over again.
drycrikjournal 