Scat at the feedsacks,
it’s become a moonlit game
slipping shadows from shop
to horse barn, yips close
drawing dogs away.
A partial blur beyond
the Blue Oaks disappearing
up rocky draws, as I check
first-calf heifers—he taunts
crosshairs day and night,
breaks into my dreams.
But I am learning
to rise with the spotlight
flashing before he leaves
for a couple hours sleep.
Looking out beneath black clouds at dawn
from a daze, it smells like rain too early
to do much good, yet I am cheery—
old friends returned, dark remnants
of a Mexican hurricane, precursors
perhaps to storms waiting in the wings
rehearsing lines, emphasizing pauses
and diction between thunder and lightening—
old flesh revived beneath a blanket.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, red sky, Sulphur Peak, weather, weekly-photo-challenge
The daughters and sons of bitches
know where I live, yip at my window—
feel my anger build long distance:
that red flush from the loins
warming the whole of me, the air
I breathe in a hundred degree canyon:
too far gone, gray necrotic hock
of a newborn shot, red dot
between its eyes. And I must go there
to get the job done. But I hate this part
of me, this part of our nature
where wars begin that never end.
Posted in Poems 2014
Tagged Butchart Gardens, haiku, photographs, poetry, weekly-photo-challenge
Deep in the Blue Oaks,
the caress of a mother’s tongue
begins new life.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, haiku, photographs, poetry
I had to tell her
about the gardeners
out of work, looking
for roses to prune,
green lawns to mow—
the fallow fields of dust
without crops to pick,
pack and haul to town
by truck, about how lean
the San Joaquin’s become.
Moonlighting, someone’s
hooking-up to hydrants
in Lemoore—a new market
for semi short-hauls
anywhere you want to go.
In the deep powder, shotgun
barrels at each trough
waiting for dove, all
signs of the hunt erased
by the wild at dawn.
I had to tell her
we’re OK, better off
than most—just to have
her think of more
than herself for a change.
Few men feel these hillsides breathe
or hear the heartbeat underneath
‘cept those that live here day to day
and nature’s beasts can hardly say
a thing.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged 'Til I Depart, Dry Creek, Dry Creek Rhymes, photographs, poetry
At the gate the dust is deep.
A feral hog at dawn returning
to his lair along the creek
atop a raccoon aiming
for the water trough, powder
soft between their toes
atop several head of cows
upon my own boot track
fading with yesterday’s breeze.
The time is now
to think about
the sign we leave.
The day unfolds in the black:
another circle of hay and water,
cows and bulls, a dusty track
on worn terrain now dreaming
on a cool, downcanyon draft
of bluster and damp—of drinking
dark clouds until the dust is mud.
Out of the shadows, the wild steps
lightly, all sharing the same dream
rising from the dry, dry earth.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Great Western Divide, Kaweah, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry, rain, water, weather
Within petals frayed,
the seeds—small devices
enduring despite us.
Purple Fairy Lantern, Purple Globelily, Calochortus amoenus
