All the thirsty hearts
have sucked the dog dish down
beyond the reach of the panting Titmouse,
nervous little bastard bobbing
empty-beaked at his favorite waterhole
below the nozzle, hose and bib
during this two-week heat wave
of highs in the teens, like every summer here
in the San Joaquin.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged heat, photography, poetry, water, weather
… (I) don’t think hurricanes
like to follow predicted paths.
–Brian Grant
The prognosticators have claimed
the climate spotlight—used science
to explain why we read poetry
when our dehydrated atmosphere
rains rivers and spawns hurricanes
while the earth is spinning faster than it should—
its fractious friction warming waters
to forge the passion of whales and otters
to object and retaliate.
Watching the weather map of Baja California,
new science is driving out a percentage
of the old that we believed was true.
Posted in POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged climate change, Dry Creek, hurricane hilary, otters, poetry, rain, science, water, weather, whales
Called too soon, persistence rooted
where peaceful dreams beneath their leaves
spilled downhill at dawn—a slow awakening
like death in reverse, never thinking
of other ways to pass the time. Weathered
skeletons of young Blue Oaks cling
to where their acorns fell to rest
before the wet and stormy springs
kept a chance of an idyllic life alive.
Truth is: no right or wrong of it—
no philosophy to make fit
what we’ll not need to understand.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023
Tagged Acorns, Blue Oaks, death, death in reverse, Drought, life, photography, poetry, rain, water, weather
The magic remains along the creek
spread wide with naked cobbles pressed
together, exposed by flooding sheets
that ripped its sandy banks before
leaving the channel changed—
a landscape rearranged for the moment!
A summer gurgle, herons and egrets come
to wade abandoned pools of pollywogs
shrinking into moss-covered gravel.
Green cockleburs rise-up from ribbons
of sand, high-water veins bleached white
until colored or carried away with the burrs.
The truth is endless here—it will keep
saying the same thing in different ways
well after we are gone.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Atmospheric Rivers, cobbles, cockleburs, photography, poetry, rain, truth, water, weather
The creek-flood bears no malice
as it carves its way to a flatland war
unearthing trees and buried cobbles
of past centuries—laying waste
to man’s old and new improvements.
It cares no more than the clouds and rain
that feed its energy, its violence
and its thunderous roar. Nor does it
bestow charity to soothe our minds
and flesh—it has no agenda, no noble
purpose nor dishonorable motives.
It just is what it always has been.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, flood, photography, poetry, rain, water, weather
Highwater debris,
enough to measure peak flow
gauging stations miss.
We’ve begun naming creeks
that flood the dry draws,
pull nominees from our histories
while exchanging guffaws.
We have become the helpless
prisoners of the weather,
of flatland floods and saturated mud,
resisting cabin fever.
Roads and fences, trees to cut,
our work comes to a halt—
no need to fuss, cows don’t need us
with water, grass and salt.
Posted in Haiku 2023, Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged cabin fever, Dry Creek, flood water, haiku, helpless, humility, mud, photography, poetry, rain, runoff, water, weather
Dry Creek:
2.28″ @ 6:00 a.m.
6,000+ cfs (extrapolated) @ 8:00 a.m. (Dry Creek running above gauging station not calculated.)
Kaweah River:
26,659 cfs @ 8:00 a.m.
Badger: 4.75″ @ 6:00 a.m.
Kaweah Watershed: https://www.spk-wc.usace.army.mil/fcgi-bin/hourly.py?report=trm
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Atmospheric River, Dry Creek, flood water, photography, rain, water, weather
How many jillion rains have washed away
the rodent digs from these exposed intrusions,
lichen-stained, fractured magma rockpiles
changing shape in the sun’s daylight and shadow
to appear to be alive for eons, like a trout
breaching a clay wave, free to see the sky?
Some have seen so much that they have souls.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023
Tagged anthropomorphism, Lichen, magma, photography, poetry, rain, rockpiles, rocks, soul, water, Windmill Spring
Seed to grain
on a whim of the weather
watched constantly
from space
and here on planet Earth
swirling with tempests
beyond the hands
of politicians—
try as they might.
Rooted in dirt
we search the habits
of our wild totems
for miracles
and pray to God as well
for luck.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022
Tagged dirt, earth, God, luck, photography, poetry, TOTEMS, water, weather
Two coyotes lope across the road in the rain
in their retreat from the swollen creek, roaring
like prolonged thunder distantly—unafraid
for they are fat on rodents curled in flooded
burrows, tailings fresh. The herons and egrets
will appear with the sun, stand guard like statues
in garden nurseries look alive. Too wet to fly,
the sheltered hawks in the limbs of leafless trees
will spread their wings until their feathers dry.
And we too wait. Some days it’s too wet—
too hot, too cold, or too dry to work—but once
in a while it makes more sense just to behold.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023
Tagged coyotes, Drought, Dry Creek, Egrets, hawks, HERONS, photography, poetry, rain, RODENTS, water, weather
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