Tag Archives: poetry

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Floral Friday

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Despite all the bad news,
let’s live life richly,
one petal at a time.

 

 

COLOR WITHOUT DETAIL

 
Under split nails and ground into our hides,
we wear our work—we carry it in our lungs
without shame or regret like grazing beasts

of the field, harvesting hillsides, plodding
from water to shade—ever-trusting in change:
the miracle of clouds packing oceans of rain.

Circles with hay, ruts of dust deep in tracks
up mountains and through brittle canyons—
it boils, rising behind us in trailing clouds,

each particle prepared for a new beginning.
We leave the gates open to any water, any
collection seeping from the cracked granite

heart of these hills, our flesh, for a drink.
The unabashed, dusty gazette of soft trails
leading to each distant water trough

prints last night’s news, distributed far
and wide, but much the same—yet we cling
to fuzzy dreams of green without detail.

 

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WPC(3) — “Dreamy”

 

SOMEDAY,

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tears of joy
no USACE dam can
constrict, nor EIR

predict as if
acronyms save breath
and litigation.

The heavens in my mind
will open up
to consume me

like a leaf rising
upon wild waters come
to cleanup the mess.

 

 

WPC(2) — “Dreamy”

PROCESS

 
Down at the County Seat they have believed
big is better, in growth before maintenance
to attain full-employment and prosperity,

hoping for crumbs from corporate plates—
our wide-eyed chiefs hypnotized
by shiny beads and synthetic blankets.

The colonial model has arrived
for one last, lasting extraction from the land
leaving it useless, ripped naked—its precious,

fresh water exposed for fifty years
of the same reasoning and excuses
for following the wrong dream.

Few people learn from their own mistakes,
and fewer yet from the mistakes of others—
but not admitting them is just plain ignorance.

 

 

Valley Voice: Cemex Lemon Cove

Valley Voice: Cemex McKay’s Point

AMERICAN GOLDFINCH, RAGLE SPRINGS

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The wild flocks
to spring water, to man’s sweat
and galvanized intrusions.

 

 

BIRDS IN BRONZE

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An endless dream: art
awakening in mottled light,
coin at its feet.

 

 

WPC — “Dreamy”

WILD GOD

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                         By division we speak, out of wonder.
                              – Wendell Berry (“To Gary Snyder”)

Alone and small within
the Sierra granite, day or night,
I ached for more

than horses and mules
to share the deep
disarming awe at each turn

of the trail, pure snowmelt
reflections of heaven
rippling beneath me,

the infinite blackness,
as I lay down to sleep,
perforated with galaxies

that surrounded me
like lantern light twinkling
off mica-flecked rock.

Perhaps it was that Sabbath
when greenheads rose from the cattails,
drops of water trailing their ascension

and my father’s long pause
to speak beyond religions
that drew me to the wild.

 

OCTOBER 2014, GREASY COVE

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You ask me now,
in this moment, waited
for my full attention

                         which I have refused,
                         too preoccupied with each rich
                         moment-at-hand.

My patient other voice,
ever-reasonable and calm,
ready for a pause

to pose the obvious, weigh
the load and look
at the short end of my string.

But I am busy listening
to my call carry across Greasy,
to cows bailing off the far ridge

leaving dust trails in trees,
to the diesel’s purr
beside me, promising hay.

To their slow plod up—
they trust that we
will do as we say.

 

 

SLOW BURN

7:40 p.m. PST, September 23, 2014

7:40 p.m. PDT, September 23, 2014

 

A little hair here and there
burns across the canyon,
a darkening charred shadow

rising in a wake of even light,
summer days and nights
behind us, behind the ridge

that stands between us
and Antelope Valley, Wuknaw
spilling into the fringed

and frayed urgency beyond.
We have a glass, of course,
discussing cattle—instead of

people—measure likelihoods
for feed and water ready
with another plan, if need be.

Light a cigarette, fill another
glass reflecting decades
of canyons worn upon our faces.

 

 

THREE RIVERS CEMETERY

Naked slopes, steep manzanita red
with rock and leafless oaks, fall
into the slow Kaweah and reach

into the blue from the headstones
of pioneers, terraced family plots
facing west, all looking up

as generations gather, heads bowed.
How many times has Earl sung
to this timeless skyline, how many

of his cattle calls still reverberate
in these canyons? No cowboy song,
he picks “School Days” for her childhood

chums, gray octogenarians recalling
the twinkle beneath jet-black hair.
Simple sendoff with simple words,

everyone of us believing she will be
welcomed “In the Garden”—everyone of us
converted for a good, long moment.

                                                  for Barbara Brewer Ainley

 

 

Obituary