Tag Archives: sycamores

TWO POEMS

IGNITION

The hillside Blue Oaks beneath the fog
round as mushrooms upon December green,
darkened mounds that have survived

the seasons for centuries speaking
what I can’t translate, yet admire above
the sycamores that hem the creek

as they catch fire—flaming colors
on the thirteenth successive day of fog
warm heart and mind despite the gray.

****

MURMURATION

The starlings swarm like bees,
murmuration, hundreds synchronized
in flight by unspoken cues to flare

and light en masse to peck and graze
the green, before that cerebral notion rises
into the sky with a synchronized dance.

DECEMBER SYCAMORES


A little rain,
a little green,
a little cold

short of a December freeze

my girls dress
in fiery colors
along the creek trickling

before winter’s strip-tease:
long limbs reaching
from the clothes at their feet.

Some trees have drunk
more than they can hold,
dropping limbs on fences—

but nimble and sylphlike,
they have shown a millennium
a glimpse of sensual grace.



SLEEPING BEES

 

A bower for sleeping bees,

the ground begs softly

beneath the burning trees

to foster cotyledons

and change the canyon green.

 

No cars on the road,

silence weighs heavily,

not a bird or bull’s bawl

to claim the open space

that’s come alive.

 

The gray sky witness

floats in a cloud-fog

damp and undemanding

as the long pause of winter

moves into a new beginning.

 

 

 

 

WINTER SOLSTICE 2023

 

A few blue clouds float

upon a light gray sky

above Barnaphy after

 

the surprise last gasp

of a cut-off low

cruising south to flood

 

California’s coast—

a warm forty hundredths here

brings a tinge of green.

 

Sycamores like torches afire,

not quite ready to undress

their long white limbs

 

intertwined, plump Rockettes,

our native chorus line

burns along the creek.

 

The cattle stay high,

all but a hopeful clutch

spurn the feed grounds.

 

 

 

RIBBON OF ROAD

 

RIBBON OF ROAD

 

                     Not the least hurt by this ribbon of road carved on their sea-foot.

                                          – Robinson Jeffers (“The Coast-Road”)

 

Fridays bring the caravans of Christians,

SUVs freeway-spaced and paced at sixty

up this snaky road to the pines and cedars

                                                                                    to pray

 

and low-snow weekends, the growl of mud grips

on decomposing asphalt, armies of colored jeeps

and shiny four-wheel drives drone up-canyon

                                                                                    to play

 

do not see these hills leaking with pleasure,

every wrinkle running with crystal streams

of rain, three weeks of storms rushing to

 

a rising, chocolate creek with foam, nor

the naked sycamores, leaves undressed,

white limbs dancing, rosy fingers reaching

 

for steamy clouds afloat upon the green

oak-studded slopes, black dots of cattle

scattered with all the legends gone before me.

 

DRY CREEK ROAD 1946

Oil by Myrtle Sue Redford

 

Dirt track before asphalt,

ruts in mud, December sycamores

after a rain waiting to undress,

 

like always—it feels the same

to escape upcanyon in your painting,

leaving main roads behind

 

before it was engineered

for 18 wheels to haul gravel—

town politics behind us.

 

Before the flood of ’55,

Terminus Dam in ’61,

much has changed

 

except for the feeling you’ve captured

of peaceful adventure

at every beginning of our road home.

 

                      for Myrtle Sue Redford

 

 

Slow Rain

The Shy Goddess has come and gone after a 2+”, 6-day slow rain from the 2nd to the 7th https://drycrikjournal.com/journal-2022-23/, only to return Saturday with another inch, enough to push Dry Creek down canyon. Quite a welcome sight, water in the creek, sycamores afire and green; the way it ought to be!

WINTER FIRES

 

 

Color comes with cold and wet

within the canyon, even before

the creek flows or sycamores burn

 

leather brown to shed their clothes—

white bodies tangled in a pagan dance

to gods unknown.  Orioles return

 

as sparks in the brush, levity

in the pink overcast of dawn.

We glean the fallen skeletons

 

of oak and brittle manzanita

to fill the woodstove. Curious cattle

come to wonder what we’re about.

 

AT SUNSET AFTER CHRISTMAS RAINS

Last flash of limbs

in a pagan dance

as shadows crawl

across the creek

to pull night’s curtain up

into the stars.

 

The canyon has come to life

with promises of spring—

birds and trees are talking

above the bulls’ primal bellowing—

tension spills with energy.

 

Shrill yips and howls

in every draw ignites

another all-night

canine celebration

to exasperate the dogs.

 

Even the old flesh perks up

with fresh strategies,

just in case the market’s up

and we get more rain—

just enough to do it over again.

Bulls to Greasy

Allie and Terri coming out of Sulphur after driving the bulls with Robbin to Ragle Springs.  The sycamores are turning, brief yellows and oranges before settling on a rusty brown, the leaves will cling until the first good storm—but nothing in sight, feeding more hay.