Tag Archives: poetry

TOWARDS TONOPAH

Posted on February 22, 2015 by | 2 comments

 

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Left 100 miles
towards Tonopah, dry hay
for California.

 

 

WPC(1) — “Rule of Thirds”

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Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015

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ALMOST MARCH

Posted on February 21, 2015 by | 4 comments

 

IMG_5687 - Version 2

 

Thin veil of snow on the Kaweahs—
granite shows on peaks undressing.
The creek slows and disappears

as the thirsty earth drinks miles
from the river, puddled behind a dam
that will not fill the Valley’s furrows.

Tan medallions, last spring’s leaves
quiver from brittle fingers of oak trees
sprinkling green hills, giving centuries

of rainfall back as decomposing homes
for smaller survivors. It is not over
despite a forecast chance of rain—

dry seasons last, leave evidence only
years of floods can erase. Almost March,
the buzzards have returned early

circling an easy harmony of generations
gone—each clear voice rising,
we hear assurance and good advice.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

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LIKE CATTLE

Posted on February 20, 2015 by | 6 comments
February 15, 2015

February 15, 2015

 

                         the green growth the mind takes
                         from the pastures in March;
                              – Wendell Berry (“Goods”)

Like cattle filling bellies
becoming whole to bloom,
resting early in the shade of limbs
awaiting leaves, the pastures pulse
with goodness for as far as I can see.

How spring seemed so much longer
when I was a boy, the world wider
as the hills came alive, breathing
easily as apparitions danced
upon the green between rains.

And it becomes us to overwhelm
all else—renewed proof and hope
for mankind—pattern and possibility
yet on this earth that we absorb
like grass. And we feed upon it.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

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SMALL TOWNS

Posted on February 19, 2015 by | 8 comments

 

There is no hiding within
rural communities, the gossip hubs
of small towns team with news

at the doughnut shop, the feed store
trading in common tragedies:
DUIs, divorces, suicides.

We learn to live with guilt, grab
hold to stand beside the twisted
truth of being human, wear

the shame of each unpolished flaw
to endure self-inflicted tortures
until we escape this flesh.

No one is anonymous, no passing
face on the street. But sometimes
all the imperfections bloom

beyond the anguish, each petal
turned skyward to drink up the sun
and rain—and we are whole

for moments that no one has words
to describe, or time to take
to indulge in such nonsense.

 

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Posted in Poems 2015

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WILD HYACINTH

Posted on February 19, 2015 by | 2 comments
Wild Hyacinth (Dichelostemma capitatum) - February 16, 2015

Wild Hyacinth (Dichelostemma capitatum)
February 16, 2015

 

No perfect flower,
yet we hunger for beauty
greater than nature.

 

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EARLY SPRING

Posted on February 18, 2015 by | 5 comments
Goldfields - February 16, 2015

Goldfields – February 16, 2015

 

Warm hillsides melting
the Ides of February
in puddles of gold.

 

 

WPC(4) — “Symmetry”

 

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BARBED WIRE

Posted on February 16, 2015 by | 10 comments

IMG_2359

 

Of all the necessary evils strung
across the West, mile after mile
glistening either side of every highway,

every rail, keeping cattle in and people
out: lines of wire and sentry posts
standing between a disastrous mix

of urgencies, a clash of cultures:
the timeless calm of open space
invaded and escaped at seventy.

The better ground fenced between
Frost’s good neighbors, cross-hatched
into managed pastures cowmen dream

will optimize the grass, the grazing—
and of course the breeding: a tangled
trail of testosterone enraged to war,

a crash of skulls, two tons of bellowing
bulls colliding in a storm unwinding
borders for as far as they can.

Most cowboys despise fixing fence—
ride around the long step down
to keep the evil stuff up.

 

 

WPC(3) — “Symmetry”

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015

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CORRALS

Posted on February 15, 2015 by | 6 comments

 

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Our square creations
become places for the wild
to relax and roost.

 

 

WPC(2) — “Symmetry”

 

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SYMMETRY

Posted on February 14, 2015 by | 3 comments

 

May 18, 2014

May 18, 2014

 

A crop of fat calves
just weaned from relieved mothers
like peas in a pod.

 

 

WPC(1) — “Symmetry”

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OLD NEIGHBORS

Posted on February 12, 2015 by | 10 comments

 

                        By the excellence of his work the workman is a neighbor.
                        By selling only what he would not despise to own
                        the salesman is a neighbor. By selling what is good
                        his character survives the market.
                              – Wendell Berry (“Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer”)

We wish success for all our neighbors, fat
calves and money enough to buy good bulls
looking for work on our side of the fence,
and ours on theirs, despite best intentions.

Today, old neighbors come to help brand calves
with respect—rope, stretch and vaccinate
rambunctious children to a slow waltz—
to share the bounty of our heritage

despite the drought, despite the cows
we had to sell to save the others
and ourselves. Character upon this ground,
we have survived weather and the market.

 

10 Comments

Posted in Poems 2015

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