No star or moon light,
nor sun upon my skin
for half-a-month
in a cave of fog,
partly insulated
from the shenanigans
of men at the trough
making laws
making sure
they can still deal
a gourmet meal
on the house:
our planet earth
giving up its wealth
instead of wisdom
for those that listen.
We’ve let the commentators have their say
as if they understand the price of beef.
We’ve let politicians have their day
pontificating plans that create grief
among both cowmen and folks in town
trying to overhaul how the market works
when demand is more and supply is down
due to drought and the rising costs that hurts
us all. We let them talk, let them repeat
to show what they don’t know when numbers shout
that we have more mouths to fill with red meat
with fewer cows and cowmen due to drought.
We pray for rain and to be left alone
with a little meat still left on the bone.
Posted in Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged beef, cattle market, Drought, politics
Lots of commentary on the cattle business lately with a focus on the price of beef. But relative to inflation, $20 will buy a cheeseburger, fries and a soda or a USDA Choice New York steak at Costco. What a deal!
Our 4-year drought (2012-2016) doesn’t seem that long ago when we had to cull some older bred cows for slaughter in order to feed the rest of our herd expensive hay. A good part of the reason why producing cow numbers are at a 75 year low. Though the media has its red meat theories, nobody mentions that the US population has more than doubled since 1951. This is simple to understand: supply and demand.
KEEPING SECRETS
How do they know, these old fat cows
that read a baggy sadness in my walk
among them checking irons as they pull
alfalfa stems apart to tongue green leaf
in the corral? The gates are set, waiting
for the truck to town. There is nothing
right about the moment, that they know—
little consolation in my voice, they eye me
suspiciously searching for details
in my muted gestures. If I told them
all I know of town, of auction rings
and rails, they would all revolt
for the brushy hills, lay fences down
to take their chances without water
through the summer—that I know.
-JCD (“Best of the Dry Years, 2012-2016”)
The three variables for the cattle business are weather, price and politics, any one which can reduce our once-a-year paycheck to a loss, but two or more can be an economic disaster—none of which have we, nor the government, any control over.
In the photo above, Robbin and I fed a few replacement heifers before the forecast Atmospheric River. The grass geminated last month has become short and spotty and we have to keep them in shape to cycle and breed when we turn the bulls out in two weeks—just part of the business.
As I write, it’s been raining overnight.
Posted in Photographs, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged beef, Drought, Dry Creek, photography, poetry, politics, rain, red meat, water, weather
We ride all day 'till the sun's going down
I'm gonna be glad to get out of this town.
- Charley Willis (“Goodbye Old Paint”)
Into Fresno for the first time in years
to carve cancer off my face
with the cars and trucks, all makes,
all sides, both ways, packed parking,
debt-ridden drivers cooped-up
in caves and castles busy being
where there is no place
without more of the same
for miles
and I’m scared—
not of the knife, nor of the scar—
but way too tight for my old heart.
It is a race now, but slowing near the finish line—
time to identify new wildflowers, measure rain
for posterity, data to apply to reason, to a pattern
for those of us who believe not everything is random
chaos, turbulence and tornadoes inside the Capitol
of the planet where the big guns make money
playing chicken, or blind man’s bluff
for the rest of the resources we’ve about used-up
especially space without trace or track
of humankind—
the dogwood creek’s short cast
for snowmelt rainbows where
even a child would not go hungry.
I can go back anytime I want
to escape or wait
until the job’s done.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry
Tagged "Goodbye Old Paint", Charley Willis, poetry, politics, progress, Tex Ritter
Blading the season’s last green grass
for firebreaks, I need to concentrate
far away from the world’s turmoil,
peel the weeds out of the soil
or sever their roots, over and over
the same ground until smooth—
an impatient perfectionist,
carving a twelve foot road
the cattle will travel and dimple
like a golf ball, but will stop fire
if not too windy to ignite
wild oats and tall dry feed
easier than I can throttle back
the flow of pompous rhetoric
that has ignited global animosity.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged firebreaks, photography, poetry, politics
Out here in the California heartland
beyond the peeling billboards
that once announced
every fruit and vegetable
capital of the world
removed from Highway 99,
swapping crops
for air conditioned shopping malls –
neutered Valley towns
given-up their figs
to farm people instead,
I can’t tell Turlock from Modesto.
Out here between the furrows where
every Mom and Pop grocery store,
fruit stand, bar, bait and tackle shop
under one flat roof is boarded-up,
old gas pumps frozen
like soldiers from the Fifties
waiting for a windshield
or dip-stick to check
or if the kids are over
the mumps or chicken pox yet.
And Congressman,
I know we can’t go back –
that the rest of you must
have great big plans
we can’t comprehend,
that you all have your own dream
of what you can do with the harvest:
your ledger of plastic magic debts –
but what happens
when the tree grows
too far from its roots?
We are the tendrils
burrowing in the dirt where
what little water left
is pumped into food
we can’t sell at a profit
anymore
and I was wondering
how do we fit your vision
of the new millennium?
How are you going to keep us
producing
like numb milk cows to stanchions
without kicking down
with a little more cash
or bigger rations?
Or have you dealt us out
for some fresh field workers
not yet addicted to
electricity or TV,
never driven a tractor or new car
or had to pay
license and insurance yet
with nothing to lose
but their innocence?
Dear Congressman,
I couldn’t sleep again tonight
trying to figure how it’s going to work
and thought I’d write and ask you
before
I invest another decade in the soil:
how in the hell can we stay
to pay the bills and still
subsidize your consumption?
You don’t need my vote
and not enough will hear
whatever good or bad I might say
about you to matter,
but I thought I’d ask
one human to another:
do you really have a plan?
Not much has changed. Written in 1998 and included in “Poems from Dry Creek” (Starhaven)
We know better than to claim
success when the grass is belly-high
and Dry Creek runs year-round.
We know the fickle temperament
of the wild gods and goddesses
who have few rules and no obligations
to monied interests, no crusades
to justify their integrity: certain
dominion over man’s campaigns
to domesticate their nature
for a dollar—that will, in time, undermine
humanity’s conceit for much less.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025
Tagged nature, photography, poetry, politics, power, weather
1.
Crows circle,
coyotes skulk
and a Red Tail watches
on a bare oak branch
for a ground squirrel
to wake and warm
atop a rock at dawn.
Everybody’s hungry
in February.
2.
Cold marble ceiling,
precursor to another
stream of storms predicted
to test the levees,
erase the landscapes
of man’s mistakes,
but likely missing
a golden opportunity
for humanity.
3.
The imbalanced weight
of man’s achievements
and herded hostilities
wobbles the planet’s
tipsy equilibrium
between war and peace,
the struggle for power
over Nature
to right herself.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry
Tagged development, Humanity, nature, photography, poetry, politics, power, weather
No point waiting for a rain to start the green
until October, and even then it’s blasphemy
to pray or say the word out loud to anyone—
especially with El Niño mapped and gathering
off shore, lapping Jeffer’s granite with warm waves
of poetry—just load and feed the hay like always.
No point worrying about the news a thousand miles away
or all the hobgoblins waiting in ambush down the road
littered with deceptions and diversions, lust and greed
to greet you—just load and feed the hay like always.
Posted in POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, El Nino, feed hay, news, photography, poetry, politics, rain, weather
I have cut myself away
from the entangled coils
of ship and state
drawn more to songs
among the cactus cuckoos
at first light of dawn—
tossed across the pasture
deep-throated news
I can depend on
while a lone quail hollers
to awaken coveys
like children for school.
But I still don’t trust
the cry-baby whines
of our arrogant Ring Neck’s.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry
Tagged news media, photography, poetry, politics, quail, Ring Neck Dove, Roadrunners
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