Tag Archives: water

REAL LIFE

Posted on February 23, 2015 by | 5 comments

 

Whitetip Clover (Trifolium variegatum) - March 24, 2013

Whitetip Clover (Trifolium variegatum) – March 24, 2013

 

In the dark I hear the heartbeat
of another world on this planet
the newscasts miss, we overlook

amid conflicting calculations
with new angles on the numbers
to chart a course to reverse them—

eyes spinning within a slot machine.
Light applause on the roof
answers with one more encore

wrenched from early morning’s
black sky, each green blade,
thick as dog hair in these hills

puddled with brightly colored petals
already reaching for first light.
In the dark I hear the heartbeat

of wet ground growing stronger,
inhale its sweet breath
all-around me releasing life.

 

 

WPC(2) — “Rule of Thirds”

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015

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ALMOST MARCH

Posted on February 21, 2015 by | 4 comments

 

IMG_5687 - Version 2

 

Thin veil of snow on the Kaweahs—
granite shows on peaks undressing.
The creek slows and disappears

as the thirsty earth drinks miles
from the river, puddled behind a dam
that will not fill the Valley’s furrows.

Tan medallions, last spring’s leaves
quiver from brittle fingers of oak trees
sprinkling green hills, giving centuries

of rainfall back as decomposing homes
for smaller survivors. It is not over
despite a forecast chance of rain—

dry seasons last, leave evidence only
years of floods can erase. Almost March,
the buzzards have returned early

circling an easy harmony of generations
gone—each clear voice rising,
we hear assurance and good advice.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

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Journal: February 2015 — Seven Pix

Posted on February 17, 2015 by | 9 comments

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Robbin and I went to the Paregien Ranch Sunday to check the cattle, feed, and rain gauge since the storm on the 7th, 8th and 9th. An 1.43″, which was more than anywhere else on the ranch. We’re still trending warm and dry with wildflowers blooming a month earlier than normal, the poppies above and below in Ridenhour Canyon.

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Despite the lush look of spring, there is no rain in the forecast for the rest of the month with temperatures in the mid-70s. We’ll be needing another rain soon or it will be a short grass season. Nevertheless, the cattle are doing well, both cows and calves, taking advantage of early and strong feed.

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Looking ahead, we shut the cattle out our new gathering field to give the grass a chance to grow before we wean, which is normally in May — but it may be March or April if it doesn’t rain.

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Checking on the Windmill Spring, we were greeted enthusiastically by our independent ‘Little Buddy’ who can be seen helping us cut firewood Here and helping me plumb a trough Here before he was branded and tagged in December.

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Though it appears that we’re both having a drink, I was blowing on the overflow pipe to unplug it. Of course, our ‘Little Buddy’ was well aware of the hay in the back of the Kubota.

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METAL ROOFS

Posted on February 11, 2015 by | 11 comments

 

                        Let me wake in the night
                        and hear it raining
                        and go back to sleep.
                              – Wendell Berry (“Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer”)

The lullaby that soothes my brain,
a metal roof under rain, proof
of gods and goddesses on the job

while I rest completely—let night
take me unafraid anywhere it wants
until the glistening of puddled mornings

blind me with glimpses of paradise
upon this earth, wet and wanting
nothing more from rustic religions.

Every church should acoustically angle
its spires and ridgelines to accentuate
these heaven’s gifts—and to withstand

retribution’s thunderous roar while
renting and gnashing huddle beneath
the storms that flood the rivers muddy.

We are not the architects, nor the nomads
chasing rain from place to place with herds
anymore. We pray instead for basic

sustenance to run upon and off our roofs,
season after season—no two the same—
to wake in the night and hear it raining.

 

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Posted in Poems 2015

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GOOD LUCK FISHING

Posted on February 10, 2015 by | 2 comments

 

                         Don’t pray for the rain to stop.
                         Pray for good luck fishing
                         when the river floods.
                                – Wendell Berry (“Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer”)

And we will fish reflection pools
with Egrets and Great Blue Herons, wade
cloudy skies when the creek subsides

listening to the glorious chorus of tree frogs
croaking symphonies from fresh verdancy—
the canyon clean, all tracks erased

but for the moment to begin again.
What better luck can any god offer
a mad farmer, or mankind?

April 1968: my feet wet with fishing
the great white limbs of sycamores,
naked canopies reflected below me,

recording fresh soliloquies on war
that have not changed but for poetic
editing each time the creek rises—

hope still claims high water marks
beyond the creek bank, despite
clear-cut scars upon this landscape

after a decade’s invasion of machinery
from towns craving to become cities.
We pray yet for good luck fishing.

 

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Posted in Poems 2015

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Rain

Posted on February 8, 2015 by | 9 comments
4:00 p.m., February 7, 2015

4:00 p.m., February 7, 2015

 

 

WPC(2) — “Scale”

 

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ON THE SEMI-ARID EDGE

Posted on January 22, 2015 by | 10 comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The big dogs are drilling deeper,
pumping the last of a million years
of underground water, each river

dammed into furrows to farm
the empty Laguna de Tache.
Sixty years ago, when red lights

stopped in every railroad town,
colorful cornucopias spilled
from billboards onto Highway 99

bragging fruit or vegetable capitals
of another world, and huge Big Oranges
squeezed juice every ten miles.

On the semi-arid edge of change,
we beg for rain and dream of floods
to take this Valley back in time.

 

                    *     *     *

 

1876 Tulare County Map

Wiki: Laguna de Tache, Tulare Lake

 

 

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HIS HERONS

Posted on January 21, 2015 by | 2 comments

 

Easter 2014

Easter 2014

 

After rain in spring, I see my father
standing among a half-dozen others
atop fresh mounds of dirt, hear him

praise the Great Blue Heron as the best
‘gopher-getter around’. As the creek
warms, he glides up canyon early,

spends his days wading shallows,
coasting home in the gloaming.
Punctual, you could set your watch

by his circles to work each day,
depending on season and crop.
When it all mattered too much,

he’d slip up the road to check
the feed and fences, the condition
of my cows grazing with his herons.

 

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LEARNING TO FLY

Posted on January 15, 2015 by | 2 comments

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Of all the spontaneous art, none
more trustworthy, more enthralling
than the wild mirrors—of heart

and grace without guilt pulsing
to get free, rising with the ascension
of ducks from cattails, clear droplets

raining from webbed feet etched
to hang on white cloud walls
to draws us in—and then, like

windows out to where we might
want to be—like poetry, learning
to fly with words a little at a time.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015

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PILLOWED CLOUDS

Posted on January 8, 2015 by | 8 comments

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I used to think that inside the deep heart
of the world gone wild, that we all wanted,
craved, needed, or would acquiesce to,

                         a yet to be identified
                         common soul:
                         a ‘peace and love’ tranquility
                         where we all got along
                         with our dreams—

a musical, moaning chorus of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’
that kept us busy feeling fine as frog hair,
trying harder to make life better for everyone.

But how could heaven’s everlasting light
be so great without a dark side, without the moon
rising in new places dressed in different phases
behind the skeletons of oak and tops of pine?

                         Rain and storm for free.
                         Life from dust, the miracle
                         of green reaching up
                         to seed itself
                         against adversity

should be enough to brave the skullduggery
of all the power-hungry opportunists that slink
and lurk in the shadows. And what of poetry
rooted in the illusion of pillowed clouds?

 

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