My mother’s favorite, delicate and bold
among the grasses. Hard to come by
in these times, there is a place
among tall oaks where they thrive
that my father must have known,
that I visit every spring to see
they have survived, like innocence
untouched by humankind. She would ask
if I’d seen them, found them yet.
~
Baby Blue Eyes Nemophila menziesii
½-1½” diameter
4-12” height
March 14, 2016
that which there is no greater
– “Flying Cowboys”
A yellow pincushion dances outside
my macro lens, unsteady gusts
I can’t follow closely, can’t keep up
on my knees. But I know what I want
and hope for something better
than what I see, let the aperture
find bokeh and focus for a fraction
of a second saved for another time
when I need to escape the news—
lose myself, and be this flower
wild and hearty in sandy ground
that grows poor feed for cattle.
Low downcanyon, all shades
of gray after-rain clouds, convoys
of cumulus trailing the storm from west
to east wanting to be thunderheads
as far as I can see of infinity
from the pasture, this close up.
for Jessica
~
Yellow Pincushion Chaenactis glabriuscula
1-2″ diameter
1-3′ height
March 14, 2016
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged macro, photography, poetry, wildflowers
Crown on ice
waiting for a rain
in a water glass
for me and this
yellow pad
to storm black ink,
prolong spring
with fresh metaphors
for resilience.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Crown Reserve, poetry, rain, rainbow
We know the sound, feel it
pound our flesh, reverberate
in our skulls, draw sinew tight
to hold on—to the moment
fleeting, bucking, kicking loose
the last of common sense.
No ordinary ride in the park
upon watered lawns spaced
between pampered shade trees,
we recognize the scent
of rain on sudden gusts,
feel skin shrink, follicles lift
us up, and the sweet cud
swirling above bovine beds,
flat mats of grass awakening.
Not quite wild, we are captive
in a maze of weathered hills,
fractured rock and families
of oaks where shadows slip
and voices stalk—whisper one
more metaphor upon our lips.
No sense.
Nonsense.
Sometimes most clearly
through the eyes
of the bewildered
we see ourselves
spawned upon this earth
not as peacemakers
nor avenging angels,
but fallible and human
driven to plod on.
How do we find our grace
like salmon,
like rattlesnakes
born elsewhere?
How do we know the way
it makes us,
shapes us
into words,
into song?
for Merilee
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged expression, eyes, Grace, Home, life, photography, poetry, song
“listen to that music.
The self we hold so dear will soon be gone.”
– Gary Snyder (“Anger, Cattle and Achilles”)
I’ve packed a rifle since I was ten
following cow trails in these hills
listening to music: the Red Tail’s cry,
its feathers rush overhead,
plummeting for fun—a calling
to another life without accouterments.
In time, we collect clear moments
of ourselves, fresh glimpses stamped
and saved that weigh nothing, cost
nothing, yet live behind our eyes.
No word for the first murmur
of a cow to its wobbly, wet calf
forever branded in our brains—
no word for the outside music
played with poetry and song.
~
Weekly Photo Challenge (1): “Careful” / “Full of Care”
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged Gary Snyder, Listening, music, outside, poetry, self, weekly-photo-challenge, wild
There is no blank sheet—
no white, unblemished page
on which to letter words
together, even in the highlands.
Once when I was there in awe
and almost nothing, irrelevant
but to breathe and drink from streams
of melting snow off peaks
like granite teeth sunk into the blue,
blue sky, lost in my insignificance—
the paper I carried from the world
below was smudged and dirty.
So it is with we humans, never free,
never clean enough to pen
the perfect words without shadows,
without darkness leaking starlight.
We track circles on the same ground
through brush and granite rock,
over mountains and down canyons
patched with spooky skeletons
of trees, broken limbs at their feet.
Last year’s blond and brittle feed
folds into dust under foot, under wheel
into decent firebreaks swirling around us
as we check springs and clean water troughs
measured with our eye. We carry hay,
fat cows come running six to the bale
once a week, fresh calves knocking
at the door of a new and wobbly world—
waiting to inhale one hundred degree heat.
Too soon to rain, we plod like cows
in dusty circles, all soft trails
lead to water and shade, or to the hum
of solar pumps in abandoned wells.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged August, broken limbs, Calves, cows, Drought, granite rock, Greasy Creek, Hay, photographs, poetry, rain, water, weather
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, rain, red sky, weekly-photo-challenge
Supermoon, June 23, 2013
What gift of light
have I to offer
dark mornings,
the coyote’s howl,
of stars reflecting suns
above the ridgeline
of her body sleeping,
breathing beside us
in this canyon apart
from the news
of mortal men
and women staged
to sell consumption
and wealth
to the enslaved—
before I fail
to be so generous
in the daylight?
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, Supermoon
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