…and maybe, just maybe she
comes by a different route,
out of the south with moisture
early. I have felt her breath
in the shade of evening
on my face, harbingers
that teeter on imagination
long enough to become
themselves, develop within
the fading light. All this
imagining excites the flesh
and hair. As shadows stretch
between half-naked oaks
on these sepia hillsides—
we start to color dreams.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry, weather
No telling the tune
that’s dressed to kill
to pass the hat, to fill the till.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Anisocoma acaulis, Dry Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, Scalebud, weekly-photo-challenge, wildflowers
Thought extinct, it survives
grazing hooves and drought
to stop development.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Dry Creek, haiku, Kaweah Brodiaea, photographs, poetry, weekly-photo-challenge, wildflowers
The dogs are barking now,
raccoons in the rocks—
chattering moon shadows
discussing the last of the Elbertas
they can’t see picked
in a bowl at the sink.
Stray Queensland waits
for daylight at the dog pens—
fell out of someone’s pickup
coming late off the mountain.
Then to the hitch rack, smell
of horse and hoof, sure
of a ride home. He knows
the dandy who can’t remember
where or when he lost him.
Loose four nights, pen door
open to food, his voice
grows deeper into the dark.
Posted in Poems 2014
Tagged 'Imagination in Place', Dry Creek, Exile, poetry, Wendell Berry
Rising within the civilized
with untamed dreams
ready in my mind.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Butchart Gardens, haiku, photographs, poetry
My brown-skinned girl,
each dusty draw
seems softer, shadows
linger longer at the dawn
as the sun moves south
down ridgelines.
I begin to hear
the faint sound
of a light rain, early
on the roof—the musty
smell of it awakening
a primal surge of new life
for old veins on guard
for the slightest sign
telegraphed ahead
of a train in my mind
mesmerized by rivulets
finding their own way
to the creek running
into spring. Cottonwoods’
first yellow leaves
gathered by rolling gusts
up and down canyon—
you say you feel it too.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged August, Butchart Gardens, Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, signs, weather
Empress Hotel
The old trees wear scars well,
grab and hold the earth
together better than sapling
wood bending with each recent
gust, or so we say with ages
packed beneath our peeling bark
delicately exposing what we could
not young. Not nimble dilettantes,
we take our wine in gulps for pain,
for all that has been lost–
that we will surely follow
to the fire, warming as always,
toil by toil until we become
bucketed gray ash to be stirred
and washed into the hungry heart
of soil. These old trees stand
their ground to wait with memory
and dream, always almost there.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Arbutus, British Columbia, Canada, Empress Hotel, Pacific Madrone, photographs, poetry, Victoria
The Red Tails lift and glide above me,
circling our gather within oak trees, chemise
and fractured granite that hasn’t moved
for centuries on this mountain. One of few
humans they know, I have wished
upon their wings and eye, like a falconer,
to inform, to lead me to what I can’t see
grazing peacefully. Someday, maybe—
or resort to drones to do my bidding,
watch the calving, check feed and water,
be on patrol for coyotes and bears,
instead of me. But who would we be,
streaming sci-fi cowboy poetry? Who
would ever know enough to welcome us
into this other world, their home?
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged birds, cows, coyote, drones, Greasy Creek, photographs, poetry, Red Tail, wildlife
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Canadian Geese, Canadian Honkers, Dry Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, water, weekly-photo-challenge, wildlife
drycrikjournal 