Tag Archives: weekly-photo-challenge

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WPC: Object

Object under siege by leafhoppers in May 2012. For more on the Weekly Photo Challenge

8 Comments

Posted on February 1, 2014 by John in Photographs

Tagged weekly-photo-challenge

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WPC: Juxtaposition

Christmas 2013 – Wagyu tenderloins

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Posted on January 25, 2014 by John in Photographs

Tagged weekly-photo-challenge

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The twins, now over a week old, are doing well as it appears that “819” will raise them both. Currently relegated to babysitting duties (outside the frame) while the other mothers are eating hay, she’s doing quite well keeping track of her own two calves.

I am reminded of my poem “IO” published in Poems from Dry Creek reprinted below:

On the horns of an infant moon,
the creek shrinks and pools
between sycamores and live oaks

as babies come to first-time mothers
bringing the bear tracks downcanyon
on the scent of spent placentas.

Black progeny of the river nymph –
white heifer driven madly by Hera’s
gadfly Oestrus to cross continents

and populate Asia – find maternity
perplexing at first. Yet, lick and nuzzle
the stumbling wet struggle to stand,

suckle and rest that enflames instinct
in all flesh. Worthy timeless worship,
no better mother ever than a cow.

3 Comments

Posted on January 23, 2014 by John in Photographs

Tagged 819, IO, Poems from Dry Creek, twins, weekly-photo-challenge

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WPC: Window

Paregien Branding 2014

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Posted on January 11, 2014 by John in Photographs

Tagged weekly-photo-challenge

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BEGINNING

Abandoned hay rake resting
in the sycamores has not moved
in my lifetime, unless with silt

under floods that rose against them
when farming across the creek
didn’t pay. How long have they

danced, changing clothes, adding
and subtracting limbs, courting
the moment to begin again?

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Posted on January 4, 2014 by John in Photographs, Poems 2013

Tagged weekly-photo-challenge

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Joy

                         Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
                         And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was                          oftentimes filled with your tears.
                         And how else can it be?
                         The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you
                         can contain.
                                         – Kahlil Gibran (“On Joy and Sorrow”)

I continue to find new splendor to color our current drought apart from its impact to our cattle and bank account. Not only is the determination of Nature exhilarating, but with it comes a rare glimpse of beauty in these bare hills.