We have left our mark on this ground:
the house, the pipe, the horses,
cattle, shop and barn—and the avenues
between them—that were not here
forty years ago where the deer lay down
beside the road. Our tracks everywhere
we worked details into grazing hillsides
and raising calves you’ll never see
before they are erased by time’s storms
and someone else’s appetites and dreams.
Our short moment among the mortar holes
and pictographs that will outlive our presence.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry
Tagged culture, Home, mortar holes, photography, pictographs, poetry, time, tracks, Wuknaw
March 10, 2011
Once the invincible gambler,
I was weaned on cowboy heroics
to wear the scrapes and scars
of chance and circumstance
stiffly—my bones now groan
ground under the pressure
of time, worn smooth as cobbles
in a creekbed. Stride shortened,
my feet slide searching for stability,
having danced this earth as one
in my collected dreams aboard
four great horses I’ve outlived—
I am learning to change my mind,
to find the flavor in a moment
I’ll not savor another time.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged age, chance, change of mind, circumstance, horseback, photography, poetry, time
The fine dust upon old tools I have forgotten
as I clean the shop: my brace and bits, some
long-enough to chew through creosoted
railroad ties while scraping granite gravel. Mighty
hugs to my shoulder in long, youthful spurts
that warmed the birdshot bearings out-of-round
where there was no electricity to hang a gate
miles from the asphalt. It was my third.
I wore them out. I knew no other way.
I recognize the dead scent of time as mine
on the shelves, in wooden boxes no one makes
anymore, protecting stiff-leather headstalls
and rusty bits we’ll never use again. I must make
room for the cordless handyman, especially
since this old battery has begun to run down.
Posted in POEMS 2023, Ranch Journal
Tagged age, dust, poetry, rechargeable batteries, time, tools
No time to rush! Let me linger,
relearn the mantra,
absorb the moment.
Time will escape me soon enough.
The forecast storm is bogged-down north.
We’re wet enough
to have a spring—
wildflowers blooming in our dreams.
Feeding horses, I catch the mist—
each tiny drop
upon my tongue
tastes like this passing moment.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023
Tagged age, photography, poetry, rain, time, urgency, weather
Damp and cold, her breath
slips through the door cracked
to push the smell of smoke
through the house while it rains
lightly. I steal deep breaths,
pretend I’m young again
before I light another.
Though I miss the real storms,
the overbearing trepidation
that escapes its banks to flood
with heroic tales and wonder
when its over, I am now lifted
out of time on her breath,
this gentle rain, hillsides
running green—reborn again.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged breath, Drought, photography, poetry, rain, shy goddess, time, weather
Never arriving, what can we understand,
and always leaving, what’s left to explain?
– Su Tung-p’o (“After T’ao Ch’ien’s ‘Drinking Wine’”)
Leaving only the moment, I remain in this canyon’s swirl
of loose pieces, histories before me beckon memories
and how it’s changed in my lifetime to survive the storms
of wet and dry that forsake young skeletons of hillside families
to stand among the forgotten limbs at their feet.
I hold this landscape’s perfect smile of emerald green
in dreams, waiting for a glimpse of her velvet face,
wild skiffs of colored flowers entwined in her hair,
amid the planet’s storms for power, day and night—
always faulty propositions for the masses.
As I draw closer, leaving an uphill trail of time behind,
this place I have circumnavigated since I was a child
owns me—now that its desires have become mine.
My eyes ride the ridgelines at the edges of heaven
where I will rest easily when I finally arrive.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022
Tagged Classical Chinese Poetry, landscape, Leonard Durso, Su Tung-p'o, time
I study rock landmarks,
look for tracks
to see if they have moved.
The pipe gate swells
in the heat. Now only
swings but one way.
Resident ground squirrels
and immigrant ring-neck doves
share the dogs’ food.
On brutal days
over 110°—
there are no rules.
Like Dali’s clocks,
time is part of the landscape,
like it or not.
photo: Bodhi Rouse
Never figured on a sunset,
children, grandchildren around
a smoky Live Oak fire,
the SoCal storm bleeding north
above a frost-bitten garden—
dry stem tomatoes
and peppers hanging
like ornamental gifts
for Christmas.
I thought I escaped California in 1970
to ride back through time, didn’t think
I’d camp in one place this long.
Never figured on iPhone photos,
satellite dish for shade—
or planning for a future
that depends on water
and obsolescence.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged California, photography, poetry, red sky, time, water
Long stiff with the sweat of years,
I see myself beneath its dust, retired
from the common ignorance of haste.
All the timed events, all the wild cattle
made by the chase are scars etched
in fragile leather, some in my brain
as sweet memories of riding high,
shoulder to shoulder in the gather
of good men shaped by this landscape
that will outlast us in the end. Too soon
old, they say, too late wise, I could
always have taken better care of time,
thrown away the watches and clocks
and invested it in the real observation
of other living things—even the smallest
of which has a mission to teach us
the hard way. And what I fail to see—
this slow creak of bones will illuminate.
With crystal clarity, stars throb
before the storm moves in at dawn,
black air clean clear to infinity,
leaky bucket worlds peeking-in
the window as I wake from sleep—
another promised day of needed rain.
Once, we took the day off,
went to town, visited neighbors,
congratulated nature for the extra holiday.
A machine takes messages
from a nine-to-five real-world
ordered to make hay on rainy days—
and I listen, hoping no one wants me
but time, time to ride the prolonged rage
of a loud and sudden thunderstorm.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged rain, stars, thunderstorm, time
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