In the days before TV
I’d wake to the smell of bacon,
Dad in the narrow kitchen
of the Coffelt house, the radio
reporting war, bombs and fighter jets
over the Suez Canal
I was afraid too close
to our local news and weather report.
I first remember my mother
talking to herself
in that same kitchen
and asking who she was talking to
more often now
as my alter ego
impulsively shares
some candid humor
with and about myself.
WINDOW GLASS
This to a man with neither courage, brain,
nor heart to find his way back home again.
– B. H. Fairchild (“The Second Annual
Wizard of Oz Reunion in Liberal, Kansas”)
I catch glimpses of faces reflected in windows
this side of the mountains the birds mistake
for open space—beak first limp upon the redwood
deck. Bell rung, we set them upright and wait
as most come back to life. I claw my memory,
open it like garden soil for names to nurture
at the damnedest times of day or night dreams
as the bird flies off. Nothing’s quite connected, yet
familiar as my grandmother’s vegetable beef
soup steaming on the electric coil
that blistered my hand red. My aunt would talk
politics back in the Watergate Days, swear
by Nixon, then take my side of the debate
between spoonfuls, beckoning me
from the other side of the window glass.
for Sean Sexton
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry
April calves load easy here
for unknown destinations
looking back to say goodbye
to someone lost
in the muddled moment’s
brain fog.
Old between brothers,
we remember stories
the other’s forgot—
a thrill on spry legs
to dance through time
as if young all over again.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry
As great (for us) as the three-week Atmospheric River was, it put everyone’s branding schedules behind, most roads too wet to get to our cattle. Normally, we’d be at Elko this time of year, but with travel and time away from business, we needed to stay at home before our calves got too big to handle easily.
When I look around our community’s branding pens I realize now that most of the old timers are gone, that we have taken their places going ‘old-people slow’, and we prefer it. Fortunately we have some young muscle to work the ground.
Robbin and I have scaled our operation down, in part due to our heavy culling to adapt to consecutive years of drought and also by selling half of our cows to my son Bob. Branding pasture by pasture, our bunches are now small enough to get by with three ropers, one calf stretched at a time. Our relaxed pace has become even more conducive for old friends to visit while we get the work done. These photos from our second branding of the season, it’s been great!
We head to Tony Rabb’s next week to brand after he assesses the rain forecast for this weekend.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged brandings, community, Drought, Elko, neighbors, old timers, photography, poetry, rain, weather, youth
What a delightful afternoon after work (8/19/22). 109 degrees at the ‘Sip and Dip’: Katy Fry, Allie & Shawn Fox with Robbin, Buster and Tessa.
Last night’s rain left a glistening
on the leaves of limbs at dawn,
beads upon the redwood silver
twinkling like a Christmas tree.
White icing shines upcanyon,
dark chocolate in the creek flow,
first light ignites the sycamores
and cottonwoods to flames,
aged sorrel geldings buck and slide
in mud like fresh colts finding legs.
Last night’s rain left me dreaming
beyond this canyon—all a fantasy.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021, Ranch Journal
Yearning is an easy look
backwards, a slow-moving canvas
colored to taste, shaded by habit.
Our war whoops but echoes
fading in canyons on trails of broken
brush long-overgrown, mocking
our wild-eyed blindness
since sharpened and tempered
by scars upon scars and time.
Now is the moment we begin
to be all we can—to revel
in its rich accomplishment.
When we quit questioning,
when darkness falls
upon the wilderness of wonder,
are we afraid
of our imagination,
of other possibilities
among the night songs?
How full and fresh the child
that asks and asks, that sees
the disconnected weave
a vibrant tapestry!
How stale is he
that wears the answers
chiseled in a cave
to recite by braille.
The clichés rained
when I was young
like hollow outlines
I was destined to fill
with real details—
sayings tested with
practice dodging
bullets with agility
and dumb luck
to get old enough
to speak at funerals
of a few good friends
who rode with me,
or saw it all
from a distance:
no straight track
ricocheting minefields
heavily invested
in the senses. But
no longer hackneyed
hints for youth,
they become fresh,
reborn with answers
at our fingertips.
A boy’s bed upon the ground,
I stared at stars and wondered
if I was worth keeping alive
as I slept, if I could trust
the darkness to hold me
safe until morning—
looking up through
all the bright holes
of a rusty bucket sky,
connecting dreams
with a greater light
beyond the night—
I drew lines in the sky,
played dot-to-dot
instead of counting sheep.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged dark, light, photographs, poetry, prayer, religion, youth
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