Lost in a thatch of brittle stems,
foxtails and grasses ripe
with seed, we are not extinct
despite extremes: grazing hoofs
and rising floods of rain—
the four-year drought
before they finally came
and all the honest mistakes
the ignorant have made.
We are tough and may outlast
your conceit, your
Endangered Species List.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2017
Tagged Kaweah Brodiaea, photography, poetry, wildflowers
Small yellow faces
drawing life where their seed rests
in cracks of granite.
Comes early, stays late—
adds color to gray granite
outcrops through summer.
We’re on the right track identifying yesterday’s wildflower thanks to Richard’s comment and friends of Facebook friends from CNPS. I’ve included the larger plant because I can’t visually confirm suggestions from Calflora photos, i.e. Camissonia contorta, Camissonia campestris, Camissonia pallida , etc. and to offer more information to those who’ve made suggestions.
This Camissonia is tough, right in the path to the corrals where a hundred head passed over it several times this spring. Our fate does not hinge on absolute identification, but far more interesting than this election.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, photography, Sun Cup, wildflowers
I found a little patch of these interesting wildflowers on a well-traveled, sandy bank of Dry Creek in mid-April 2016. At first I thought they were Pygmy Poppies, but they may not be poppies at all.
Flower Friday
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, flower-friday, photography, wildflowers
Not ready long, they reach
for attention, beg to be seen
within the tall dry grass:
pink pulses clinging to the stem
like winged fairies resting might
if you let yourself believe.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016
Tagged clarkia, Clarkia unguiculata, Elegant Clarkia, Mountain Garland, photography, poetry, wildflowers
Funny how I can’t remember
just how the Lupine looked
like a brand-new town,
the crowded Gilia, white heads
bowed without a photograph
for proof. All the pretty faces
gone, I have a crush on spring—
as my mother, her coffee cup
beside me, would often say
of my impetuousness—I fall hard,
all ill feelings squeezed
from the inside out, swept away.
But etched in my skin, in the walls
of my brain, I can’t forget the dust,
every particle I inhaled of drought.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, flower-friday, gilia, lupine, photography, poetry, wildflowers
I dreamed I went upriver
on young legs until the roar
of snowmelt over boulders
shrank into a meadow
stream lined with pines—
going back in time.
Nothing has changed
the blackened rings,
the chiseled peaks beneath
a blue, blue sky—
and I am small again,
but with older eyes.
Where will our children go
when they get old at night?
What will they follow
to find themselves
content to be
engulfed in awe?
Thousands of friendly faces,
family reunions camped
on grassy slopes and swales
waiting in the wild
since the rains came.
The guests of honor pause
in calm disbelief, dismount
and crawl among them
to take a good long look
at spring.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Golden Brodiaea, photography, poetry, Pretty Faces, Triteleia ixioides, wildflowers
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