Buck Season Survivor
Sulphur
November 17, 2005
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Sulphur
November 17, 2005
Too much
of what I think I know
is like granite
rockpiles cracked
in a puzzled tumble �
shaped like something
sure and solid after
the earth left it
several thousand years ago
to multi-colored lichen,
and thick, velvet moss
to make a living.
But, I�ll take it
any day, any
fleeting time at all.
Good rain last night and early this a.m., more forecast on and off throughout the week with cooler temperatures.
Dry Creek: 1.0"
Greasy Creek: 1.0"
Paregien: 1.0"
Rainfall amounts in the hills either side of Dry Creek are generally greater than here at our 600 foot elevation. This year we placed gauges at the Greasy Creek corrals, 4 miles east of Dry Creek @ the 1600' elevation and at the Paregien corrals, 2 miles west of Dry Creek @ almost 1800' to quantify what we think we know. Of course the roads are too slick at the moment to get the data, but will be entered when we can get there.
Inclusion of any of this information may not be of particular interest to many, however, in this semi-arid region of California, any moisture and and its measurement becomes a fairly big deal. At the very least, logging it here keeps it accessible to us.
Still in the 70's. Light shower last night.
Dry Creek: .02
Greasy Creek: .02
Paregien: .02
Day�s cattle work done, we sip December
beer to recount the numbers onto paper
lest we forget to search acres of future
for one or two that were never there.
My eyes comb gray, old feed over green,
half-way up the ridge across the canyon
where the three of us scattered your father �
forked his urn in a good Blue Oak.
Hiroshima, Miramar, Kwadjalein � a sailor�s
wake of mushroom clouds and radiation
across the Pacific to where my eyes stray
to rest � find reason where there was none.
Next year�s new mothers put out today
will gravitate and graze this spot soon �
dot dawns and evenings until they calve
and calve again, until we too are gone.
Winter Solstice. Warm early, cloudy afternoon. Looks like a good chance of showers tonight.
Spread our replacement heifers and bulls into two fields today, hoping that the grass will carry them now without hay. Trying to get all the loose ends of our cattle work done so that we might get to thinking about Christmas, families, etc.
A part of what makes this site exciting and risky is posting fresh poems that I intend to edit or delete completely as we go forward. Some may make the sort to Chapbook In-Progress, an onsite shuffle that may or may not ever be conclusive. But all this is incidental to what I perceive [at the moment] as the purpose of our participation here.
Just now, one local weatherman is relieved that a high-pressure ridge is diverting the “nasty” weather to the north “where it should be,” apparently unaware that current water resources cannot sustain current population growth in the Central Valley. Bill O’Reilly has continually discounted the value of rural culture in his “No Spin Zone” and quite recently queried why anyone would want to know “how a cowboy thinks” in passing reference to the new movie, “Brokeback Mountain.”
The disconnect in the established media selling ad-space plays to the majority, of course. However, even the eldest of C.J. Hadley’s “Red Meat Survivors” are accustomed to being a minority, and those of us younger have become muscled-up swimming against the main stream current. Filling that chasm is tough, perhaps hopeless in the end – but what the hell, we’re still here!
Warming to 70 degrees. We can hear the grass grow.
Warm morning, more rain last night. The grass has jumped today! Lots of grins.
Dry Creek: .76 total
Greasy Creek: .89 total
Front Gate
December 16, 2005
Six Jakes - Gathering Field, Greasy Creek
November 29, 2005
The great leveler
in a frying pan
upon a camp stove
or off the mountains
into an inland sea
to float food and freight
from Stockton to Visalia �
word traveled faster
than the water subsided
in the summer of �68,
how chickens starved
in the branches of trees.
After 41 consecutive days
of rain, the DG
on Dennison Ridge
gave under the weight
of snow and dammed
the South Fork
into a three day lake,
taking part of the Garfield
Grove�s Giant Sequoias
to the Wilderness of Woodville,
scattering redwood and yellow pine
for forty-two miles
where adobe houses melted
and tens of thousands cattle
drowned on Christmas Eve.
Like any other perfect
suburbia with cul-de-sacs
between shopping malls,
concrete walls correlling tracts
of two-storey houses,
business is booming
upon the alluvium
where chickens starved
in the branches of trees.
Ragle Springs
November 29, 2005
Ragle Springs, Sulphur
November 29, 2005
Little good, it seems, becomes a storm
unless it is a twister or hurricane
to chase. Yet, this dribbling,
nuisance rain has loosened
the parched tongues of hillside gray
to symphonies:
chorus upon chorus
of �Glory Hallelujahs�
in the dark �
no better song
for a Sabbath dawn.
Monday through Thursday, the portly
and well-endowed eclipsed the state
to camouflage uncertainty.
Friday, California slid off the screen,
clear into next week. All good signs:
decent and dependable harbingers
for a good chance of rain.
Three-tenths at first light
is enough for the grass
to stay even with the frost,
to make steep roads too slick to feed,
to keep hay in the barn
and hold town in a fog
for a day or two of peace.
Rain: .42 of an inch by dark, low clouds still stacked-up and looking like more on the way.
It’s been foggy in the Valley for about a week, clear here nights and part-days until the fog rises mid-day. The grass, after an inch-plus rain before the first, is pretty slow growing in our cool, sub-60 degree highs, but it’s coming and we’ve started to cut down feeding hay.
After being-out with the cows for two weeks, the bulls have begun playing musical fields, leaving a wake of tangled barbed wire and down fences behind them, testosterone thick in the air. One of the new bulls we bought to turn out with our replacement heifers is already crippled, a fairly expensive GMA bull from George Avila in Merced. George’s bulls have held-up well in the past for us, and I tried them initially because he guarantees, believe it or not, to replace any that get hurt or can’t breed. He’s hauling me a replacement Sunday – now who else do you know would do that?
Is it ego-centric
to pray for sanity�s refrain,
thunder and lightening,
floods and rain enough
for simple words
to float from our tongues
again,
or am I lost
in the multi-syllabic drone
of pundits and politicians
with soft hands
and gossamer masks
no one hears in the din
of belching Detroit steel
out on the street?
There are so many now
going somewhere, spending
whatever ground
concrete cannot contain,
so many ways � yet
no way out of town.
Perhaps it is just
the early stages of senility
clinging to old things
like sycamores or the creek
etched beside a pictograph
of a coyote watching
from as close as he dare.
Brindle Cow & Calf
December 17, 2005
John and Robbin Dofflemyer -- Photo by Clarence Holdbrooks
November 28, 2005 -- Putting the Bulls Out: Top Paregien
Robbin and I have no idea where our participation in this project is going, but we will attempt to share various perspectives from this watershed, hoping to further an understanding of what cattle people do. Ranch-based, we perceive our future as tied to the health and productivity of the land, to the generosity of the weather, yet inevitably at the mercy of politics and politicians. Even so, knowing that our cattle have harvested the renewable resources of grass and water on Dry Creek for three generations evokes both a sense of pride and security for us, and it is our hope to offer fresh eyes in which to look at ranch landscapes, as well as the people and livestock that depend on them.
Should local terminology or our quick journal entries need clarification, we will address these questions as soon as possible. Your comments are welcome.
Located in the foothills of the southern Sierra Nevadas, Dry Creek is a tributary of the Kaweah River and home of one of seventeen stands of Sycamore Alluvial Woodland remaining worldwide, some trees: three to four centuries old. With numerous other rare plant species, the Kaweah River watershed is biologically diverse, emptying with the Kings, Kern and Tule Rivers into Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake in the lower 48 states.
Great Western Divide
November 17, 2005
Prior to the arrival of the Spanish around 1770, native cultures sustained regional population densities between the Kings and Kern Rivers unmatched anywhere else in North America. After the War with Mexico in 1849, Anglo occupation was accelerated by the discovery of gold, and later, large herds of cattle were grazed in the San Joaquin Valley to supply food for California�s growing population. With the advent of farming and a series of severe droughts and floods in the 1860�s, cattle, like the Yokuts, were displaced into the foothills.
Today, the last twelve miles of this watershed contains eight homes and as many grazing operations. With the common and successful opposition to a rock and gravel operation within the Dry Creek channel, we have become a tight community of individuals working towards the overall well-being of the watershed.
Our cow/calf operation has evolved dramatically over the years with improved genetics and the development of year-round stockwater on most of the ranch. As our weaning weights have increased over 50% since 1970, we no longer hold our calves over for a second season of grass as they would be too big and too uneconomic to finish in a feedlot. Subsequently, we have become even more focused on our cows and bulls, striving to offer seven-weight, natural beef candidates for the Video and Internet auctions.
Pair In Sulphur
November 11, 2005
Robbin and I are immersed in the ranch � not only do we work together daily, but we�re constantly devising ways to make our operation more efficient and economically feasible. Beyond our own well-being, we believe that common sense and understanding are tied directly to ranch landscapes and viable rural communities, to the �hands-on� working man and the cattle ranching culture, and that these attributes will eventually become survival skills of more and more value to society in the face of increasing technological conveniences. In addition to the maintenance and preservation of this small watershed�s resources by successfully raising cattle over the long term, we believe that this ranch, and others, can offer �grounded� educations into the future.
Fed in Sulphur
November 17, 2005
We finally cleared and buried
the huge Oleander
with the dozer
high in the horse lot
up Greasy Creek,
leaving nothing of the homestead
where there�s always a breeze
at Sulphur Spring
but cast iron scraps
of an old wood stove �
ever since Earl burned
his Mom and Dad�s cabin
to the ground
when he once stored
a sack of squirrel poison
that his good stud found.
I imagine the extra bucket
his mother packed
to the seedling
each time I pass
this empty space �
her little bit of color
amid toxic leaves
that we erased.
for Joe Bruce
Fog in Sulphur
November 29, 2005
After his invitation to the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada in 1989, John Dofflemyer began publishing Dry Crik Review as an effort to inspire the contemporary voice of the cowboy and ranch culture. Under the imprint of Dry Crik Press, Blood Trails, the Viet Nam War poems of Bill Jones and Rod McQueary, was published in 1993. From 1994 to 1996, the press produced chapbooks from Paul Zarzyski, Laurie Wagner Buyer, Sue Wallis , Scott Preston and others. Dofflemyer also edited Maverick Western Verse for Gibbs Smith in 1994. Among other anthologies, his poetry is included in Anne Heath Widmark�s Between Earth and Sky and Cowboy Poetry Matters from Storyline Press. Still in the Mountains, John�s eighth chapbook, was published in 2004.
Seems I�ve been in love
with something forever,
an empty space I tried
to fill with myself.
It is the way it is
for some of us groping
in the dark, holding-tight
to what feels good.
There are still a few
faces and names
that visit from the blue,
but most are blurred
with what I forgot to say �
with what I thought
was free at the time
I was growing up.
The eyes of animals
like the raccoon slinking
from the cat�s dish speak
plain enough. Some blank
turn outside-in like
drooling house dogs
or blind with rage,
a confused cow
that cannot see the gate.
Some trust deeply, but
some so fearful
you dare not meet them
with kind designs. Some
shake hands and look away
to hide what�s on their minds.
One can only watch the news
flash so long, let a world
of guilt and blame into the house.
There�s always something awful
going-on, something new
to pay for tomorrow �
but if we keep our shoulders
to the wheel, if we believe
our consumption will save us,
maybe someday, we will be
relieved of all the agony
we could never afford.
Live Weathervane
December 12, 2005
Heron Landing [seeking safety from a squadron of nesting redwing blackbirds ]
April 23, 2005
Never sure who is entertainment for who, we have a good supply of gophers here, frogs and minnows too.
M R Pigs! Cleaning-up the oat hay.
July 28, 2005
"Wild Sow" in the weaning pen.
September 8, 2005
Around the spring of 1988, Western Horseman featured a piece on the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, and though I was intrigued enough to read it, I dismissed it as a Big Hat show. Shortly thereafter, a friend gave me a copy of Hal Cannon�s first anthology, Cowboy Poetry: A Gathering, a pocket-sized collection of classic cowboy verse. Though some snippets were vaguely familiar, it was my first exposure to the poems and predominantly traditional poets in print.
Shortly thereafter, a lifelong friend suggested that we might head to Elko in January 1989 to hear �a different kind� of music, that the likes of Ian Tyson, whom I had heard and seen with Sylvia at the Troubadour a couple of times in the late 1960�s, were performing some original songs.
I�d been writing poetry of sorts since high school, heavily influenced by Gary Snyder and Robert Creeley, but with an appreciation of both British and American poets of the 19th and early 20th centuries. One hot summer evening while reading Hal�s anthology, it occurred to me that it might be fun to write a couple of poems in this style, shorten-up the lines and double-up the rhymes and then submit them to the Western Folklife Center as long as I planned to be there in January.
My invitation to the Gathering arrived in December and I was panicked, not having a clue of what was expected of me, aware of my fear and string of failures since childhood in front of audiences. Additionally, as near as I could determine after a couple of phone calls to Elko, I needed ten or so more poems to recite. I wanted to hide.
The long drive was torture and I didn�t sleep much in the concrete block, Rodeway Inn the night before the Gathering. I was due to recite with the �California Poets� in the auditorium shortly after what was an inspiring keynote address by Kim Stafford. I hung on every word, desperate still for some clue of what might be expected of me. In the front row after the keynote, I watched Wally McRae closely as he read excerpts from his new collection, Things of Intrinsic Worth, and was relieved to notice that his hand shook more often than not as he held the book above the podium.
Up next, I made my way backstage looking for Jessie Smith who was the host for the session. There I met Leonard Vasquez and Jim Ross, quizzing both intently as to what was expected. I introduced myself to Jessie when he arrived minutes before the session started, and getting little information, I was directed to sit in a chair on stage. Trying to be calm, I stared into blinding lights at a rumbling audience I could not see as Ed Brown, arriving late, sat down beside me. He and Jessie had stayed-up at the Stockman�s and managed less sleep than I.
Ed was up first after Jessie�s introduction. Firmly gripping the rocking podium, he read his poems in record time and retreated immediately backstage. �Go slow� was my mantra throughout, but the applause afterwards from the friendliest audience in the world lifted me above all fear. My first public speaking experience without the lip-twitching stammers and novel length pauses, I floated throughout the remainder of the Gathering, apparently having dubbed my experience to a local reporter as akin to a Cowboy Disneyland.
Brindle Cow @ Rabbit Flat
November 4, 2005
The horned-brindle cow won�t stop
at alfalfa flaked to forty-four others
along the dirt track through
a mountain woodland, moves-on
to a spot beneath an old Blue Oak.
Up and down, she sniffs the ground
as we stop to watch her roll and contract,
twist her heavy head above her back.
You slip away to photograph,
as I write these first few lines
and miss the birthing, the quick
slide of the sack, and by reading
her ears I know you are behind her
taking pictures -
never had one
of your own.
She eats and licks placenta
from its face somewhere below
the dry and brittle thistles,
the frayed and flared umbilical
swings fire-red in the sunlight
beneath her tail. Her bag freshens
as she chews, colostrum
rushing to charge each teat.
I breathe deeply, fully as you suggest
as I wait, October dust and forty years
of cigarettes choke my wind away
and she, hardly a heiferette,
ages with us in this belonging -
each tied as one
along her underside to suck �
a black bull calf.
Volume V, Nos. I & II
Winter-Spring 2006
Dedicated to the well-crafted and artful insights of a disappearing breed of men and women.
Editor: John C. Dofflemyer
Reviews: Scott Preston
Photos: Robbin Dofflemyer
ISSN: 1062-3612
Copyright 2006 Dry Crik Press
Contents used by permission of the authors and artists. All rights revert back to the authors and artists upon publication. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except for brief quotations used in connection with reviews written specifically for inclusion in magazine or newspaper articles.
PUBLISHED BY:DRY CRIK PRESS
P.O. BOX 44320
LEMON COVE, CA 93244
In memory of J. B. Allen
KINGS AND SLAVES
FIERCE AS GRIZZLIES IN THE SPRINGTIME
PROUD AS SAGE HENS CAUGHT IN RUT
TOUGH AS RAWHIDE CURED IN SEASON
HARD AS GRANITE SHAVINS – BUT
INSIDE
THERE LIVED AN ARTIST’S EYE
A POET’S WAY WITH WORDS
RESPECT FOR PROPER WOMEN FOLK
AND SLAVE TO GRAZIN HERDS
FER
THERE WEREN’T A WORLD OF CHOICES
TO A BAREFOOT FARMER’S KID
OR A RAGGED TOWN-BRED URCHIN
SWEEPIN FLOORS AND STAYIN HID.
VIEW THEIR WORLD FROM THAT PERSPECTIVE –
NONE TO LEND A HELPIN HAND
BUT A LEAN OLD HARDENED WAGON BOSS
THE LORD OF VIRGIN LAND
MOLDIN
MEN WITH HARSH DEMEANOR
SPIRITS HELD BY PINIONED WINGS
‘TIL THEY SHARED SOME MAGIC MOMENT
KEPT FOR ANGELS, PARDS, AND KINGS.
Dry Crik Review, Summer 1992
As a tangent to our participation in the Western Folklife Center’s Deep West Blog, I have taken the chance and opportunity to finally present this “lost” issue of Dry Crik Review. The risk inherent with changing formats from a magazine to Internet layout lies primarily with the presentation of the work, which was submitted for a lit-mag format over a decade ago. Assuming that we will overcome the technical obstacles and limitations while trying to incorporate the advantages of a web-based publication, this may be a “transitional” issue or the “last” issue. At this juncture, only time will tell.
Giving up the feeling of a book to hold in my hand, a weightier and more tangible sense of accomplishment, leaves not only an empty space on the bookshelf, but in my psyche as well. Typically, I open chapbooks and small press poetry publications in the middle pages, hoping that the style and content of a random selection intrigues me to move forward or back, and eventually to the Introduction and Acknowledgements, and lastly to the masthead. If my page bites are large and it goes back on the shelf, more often than not I’ll reopen it later to repeat the process again.
In perspective, each issue of DCR has been unique. There weren’t but a dozen books on the table in the Elko Convention Center in 1989, 25% of which were authored by Wallace McRae, most of the rest by folklorists. The utility of a printed format for contemporary cowboy poetry seemed obvious.
On the fourteen hour drive home from Wickenburg, Arizona, I remember struggling with the inclusion of two Viet-Nam poems that I had heard for the first time in Vess Quinlan’s motel room after the gathering. Soliciting poetry that worked on the page for the first saddle-stapled issue was tough enough in a genre just beginning to accept something other than traditional poems, but to include “Body Burning Detail” by Bill Jones and “For Bo” by Rod McQueary could sink the ship before it got afloat. I decided to take the chance somewhere around Barstow, a decision that involved my own views on the senselessness of the Viet Nam War that later evolved to Blood Trails, published by Dry Crik Press in 1993, a collaborative odyssey from both men that needed perspective, if not resolution, twenty years after each man’s honorable discharge from the Marines.
Though I may have wrestled longer with the impact of Rod and Bill’s poems on a yet to be established subscriber base in 1990, my reservations now center on my ability to accurately, or acceptably, reproduce each contributor’s work to the Internet page as submitted. I trust that most contributors will weigh my dilemma with getting their work out to a wider and perhaps more diverse audience, or so I hope, but I deal with this ambiguity as I write, not knowing how the final product will look or feel on a computer screen. We can, however, edit onsite or delete a poem completely should a contributor not be satisfied with the presentation of his work.
DCR’s subscribers have generally been rooted in cowboy poetry. The aim of this publication has always been to share, and thereby inspire, contemporary voices from this land-based culture on the page – whether cowboy or rancher, farmhand or farmer – voices appealing to, and perhaps even enhancing, senses once common to all.
Difficult to measure, but after reading Scott Preston’s 10 year-old reviews included in this issue, I can’t help but wonder if the cowboy genre has made much creative progress in the interim. During the same period, however, there seems to have been a proliferation of cowboy entertainers and venues, judging by news accounts, focusing more on awards and ceremony than content. My judgment in this regard is generally prejudiced against the quick-draw, slap-stick stuff as misrepresentative of a contemporary culture raising a healthier and better product while grazing and maintaining ranch landscapes with the longer view in mind.
As a more realistic counterbalance, however, C. J. Hadley’s Range Magazine has done an admirable job presenting this culture and the divisive issues before it. Her stories, her people and her color photographs are alive, and therein is the difference for which we owe her our gratitude. Too often, I suspect, pieces written for the stage appeal to the audiences’ misconceptions of this culture, or the Hollywood myth, which all but assumes that our culture is dead.
In the text of Stewart Udall’s talk at Elko included in this issue, he says, “The healthy part of the national tissue is small-town America. Small communities. The rural areas of this country.” And despite the TV news and pressures for more development, those of us "out-here" sense this is true. Whether James Magorian’s imagery or William Studebaker’s irony, we can make these fertile connections with everyday, rural life – and they enhance our view of the world and ourselves. Ken Brewer captures the small community; Linda Caldwell her Paint Lick, Kentucky home, making life richer as we go.
Though this issue lacks the heft of a book, it may be more cohesive than any that have preceded it. It is appropriately dedicated in memory of J.B. Allen, an ever-dependable friend and candid critic whose poetry has appeared in nearly every issue of this publication.
Whether we inspire debate or more powerful connections with our expression, we are all beneficiaries of each contribution herein. My special thanks to each contributor whose patience may have waned over time, but only because they actually forgot all about this Lost Issue of Dry Crik Review – I hope you’re pleased.
- JCD
Paul Zarzyski
“The Horseman, The Poet, The Code, The Horse”
“Putting the Rodeo Try Into Cowboy Poetry”
Kenneth W. Brewer
“The Night They Saved Uncle Lyman From the Hands of God”
“The Widower’s Lament”
Neil Meili
“Winter in the Barn”
“Herefords”
Linda Caldwell
“Look Softly It Is My Home”
Joel Randall
“No, We Weren’t Poor”
“Old Cowboy”
“Expert Counter”
Vici Skladanowski
“A Man of Few Words”
Tom Brown
“Sweet Becky”
Marcia Darnell
“Grounding”
William Studebaker
“Raking Walnuts”
“Windsickness: Why My Father Never Married”
“Spawned-Out”
“Back to Bone”
Annette LeBox
“In Praise of Blue-eyed Cowboys”
Michael J. Vaughn
“And Roy Rogers Sang the Torah”
Stewart Udall
“A Call for Westerners to Savor the Rich Land Legacy That Is Their Birthright”
Gary Snyder
"Oil"
“Reeds”
James Magorian
“Husking”
Gary Short
“Conference”Wayne Hogan
“Shoshonean”
“A Cowboy’s Larger Meaning of Downtown L.A.”
Scott Preston Reviews
CHARLIE GOODNIGHT
COWBOYS & IMAGES
TULARE DUST
BEWTEEN EARTH & SKY
HONKY-TONK CANTOS AND DRUNKARD’S DREAMS
The Quiet Man
“The Quintessence of Quietude”
THE HORSEMAN, THE POET, THE CODE, THE HORSESizing up each other’s hearts, and caught
off guard by ripples of their own
reflections, the poet reveres the horseman
as high priest, the horseman beholds
the poet as wizard. In the round pen
with a gentle colt, the trinity of hearts
beats most lovingly because, with love,
nobody becomes the broken. They delight in the flying
lead change of fresh blood, fresh words,
circulating within horse, within horseman and poet,
within this circular cowboy universe
where no two boot heels or hooves – like stars,
like snowflakes or meteorites
or the blacksmith’s hammer striking hot iron –
have ever fallen with the same grace,
gravity, fervor, and force
exactly to the same circle. The two men agree that,
for strangers, they agree much
too eagerly. And then, wide-eyed, again
in harmony, they nod to the synchronized wisdom
of their mentors – Hugo, Dorrance – showing them how
it’s you feeling the horse, the poem,
and the poem, the horse, feeling you.
The horseman hands the poet an old bridle – worn
Jeremiah Watt bit and braided reins
he cowboyed with in five states. The poet
hands the horseman a thin book of works
he wrote between rodeos he rode in one-dream
three-bar towns. Seldom has either man known
an adios so slow. In unison they turn
toward the round corral, sudden wind
imitating the sound of wings. Angels – some say
ranahan angels, disguised as fresh western air,
will perch the circle of top rails. Hands still
clasped in their long good-bye,
horseman and poet come full-circle
to this message, to A Blessing, to friendship
lit at the withers between earth and sky.for Randy Rieman
from: All This Way For The Short Ride: Roughstock Sonnets
PUTTING THE RODEO TRY INTO COWBOY POETRYLet’s begin with the wildest landscape, space
inhabited by far more of them
than our own kind and, yes, we are talking
other hearts, other stars. Fall in love with all
that is new born – universe, seedling, dawn,
human, foal, calf. Love equally
the seasons, know each sky has meaning,
winter-out the big lonesomes, the endless
horizons our hopes sink beyond
once every minute, sometimes
seeming to never rise
again for air or light,
for life. Fall madly in love
with earth’s fickle ways. Heed
hard the cosmos cues, the most
miniscule pulsings, subtle nods – no heavy-
handed tap or poke, nothing muscular,
no near-death truths revealed, no telephone
or siren screaming us out of sleep
at 3 a.m. Forget revelation.
Forgive religion. Let’s believe instead in song
birds or Pegasus, the only angels
we’ll ever need. Erase for good
inspiration from our Random Bunk-
House Dictionaries, from our petty heads
and pretty ambitions. Poetry is not
the grace or blessing we pray for – Poetry
is the Goddess for whom
we croon. Sing and surely we shall see
how she loves our music in any key –
any color, any creed, any race, any breed. Rhyme
if the muse or mood moves us
to do so. Go slow. Walk
then trot, lope then rock
and roll for even a split second, our souls
in the thundergust middle, the whole
world suddenly getting western,
pitching a tizzy fit, our horses
come uncorked – just as we were
seriously beginning to think
we savvied the salty? To believe we could
ever turn the stampede,
like steers, into a milling
circle? Into a civil gathering of words?In Memory of Buck Ramsey
from: Wolf Tracks on the Welcome Mat
THE NIGHT THEY SAVED UNCLE LYMAN
FROM THE HANDS OF GOD
Berry days.
the whole region
came to town
for the parade –
25 entries,
counting the Lamprey kids
and their red wagon
pulled by two dogs.
The whole day
was noise and colors,
kids chasing kids
and papas chasing mamas.
It was Berry Days,
and juicy, sticky
summer days.
Hot enough
to offer the Bishop
a beer in public.
The boys ate dust
on the diamonds,
fanned away the bugs
in the field
with their mitts,
sweat in their crotches
harsh as corncobs.
That evening
everybody –
everybody
danced.
Four bands took turns
all into the late
cool hours past righteousness.
Lemonade inside –
beer and whiskey out.
Toward midnight
they missed Uncle Lyman.
The men went looking
while the women
gathered the kids for home.
They found him
behind the church,
cross-legged on the lawn
by the picnic table.
Old Mary
the born-again Christian
was unbuttoning
the second button
of Lyman’s blue shirt,
his overalls’ suspenders
were off his shoulders
and spread on the
ground like
angel’s wings.
The men hesitated,
then one of them
called out Lyman’s
name as if
calling a lost pig.
Mary jumped up,
ran around the
church and
out of sight.
Lyman didn’t move.
When the men
got to him,
he was snoring.
They pulled up his straps,
backed the pick-up
and loaded him in.
Nobody told the women.
Not long after,
Born-again Mary
got sent to
the State Hospital
at Blackfoot.
“thought she was God,”
someone reported.
The men smiled
but wondered
just what Lyman
might have missed.
THE WIDOWER’S LAMENT“Jakob,”
she would say.
Her lips
would come together
like a kiss.He misses
her most
in winter,
morning and
night,her warm skin,
her breath,
the honeyed smell
of her wet hair,
the sound of “Jakob.”Even the flaps
of skin
where breasts
and nipples
had beenhe remembers
even the scars
heated his hands
beneath the blankets
in the dark, cold nights.Now he curls
around an empty space,
warms his hands
between his thighs,
and wakes to sorrow –his name unspoken.
He touches the cows
like an embarrassed lover
Sips coffee
with his eyes closed.
WINTER IN THE BARN
Steam rises from the backs of big horses.
The old Holstein in the second stall
shifts her weights from side to side
matching the rhythm of milking
and flicks her tail at memories
of summer flies
Across the width of barn
I stand with mouth open
in my biggest five year old oval
catching most of the warm milk
squirted dead eye straight
by the laughing hired man
In the tack room
kittens wait by a tin plate
to put their moustache on
In my memory it is always warm in the barn.
HEREFORDSThey’re not as storied as the Texas Longhorn
nor as hairy as those Highland creedsThey’re not nearly as sophisticated
As those new European breedsThey don’t calve out as easy as Angus
But they’ll answer all your needs(and they’re pretty too)
I remember
few things as beautiful
as looking back from the point
and seeing a few hundred Herefords
pouring through a cleft in the hills
down to the home corrals
like a spring flood
red as the earth and blood
rolling with white faced foam.
LOOK SOFTLY IT IS MY HOME
I drive down this road nestled in the hollow
slowly today
the road that I travel to home
usually I give the landscape only an accepting glance
because its mine
indelible
with eyes closed
far away I see it still
because it is my home
slowly I look through your eyes
but it is still beautiful
because it is spring
the rain has fallen here
softly drying on the pavement
where we were only an hour ago
it was dry
I tell you
“look softly because it is my home”
when I arose this morning
with my feverish dreams still clinging
(you were there of course)
the mist had collected on the curve of the hill
like a skim of milk
milked diagonally into a bowl
the cows still lay in the watery sweet grass
in dim silhouettes
your eyes were in my head
lately I look at everything with them
valuing judging
and then discarding
because it is too beautiful for their pity
NO, WE WEREN’T POOR
Nice house
painted white
window too.
No roll
catalog.
Went to town
every other
Saturday nite.
Visited on the corner
traded eggs
for groceries.
Sold cream
for cash
No we weren’t poor.
In the summertime
last stop
ice
big block.
In the fall
new shoes
for school.
Bought some
coal too.
No we weren’t poor,
OLD COWBOYAnguish
the man
his face
the pain
his silence.
His past
the scars.
A map
of mistakes.
Life lived
traveling
too fast.
Dust settling
in the wrinkles.
The count
never questioned
Expert counter
Bowlegged and crippled
Stiff and slow
old cowboy
Standing on the rail
at the gate
Eyes alert and quick
Dust cloud
Stampeding by
Bawling, bellerin & crowdin
Mixed herd
cows, calves and bulls
all sizes and colors
The count
Never questioned
Expert counter
Buyer and seller
Money exchanged
movin on
Greenhorn observer
Stampeding herd
NY city baffled
Asked the old cowboy
How could anyone
possibly count em
He replied – Easy –
Just count the feet
Divide by 4
The count
never questioned
Expert Counter.
A MAN OF FEW WORDS
(in the voice of Rhae Foster)
My mule just died – the one I called Mac
One hell of a beast – surefooted, strong back
Been with me for years, I can still hear his bray
Nothin’ lasts forever, so what can I say?
My wife stayed with me almost twenty years
She warned that she’d leave me – I just didn’t hear
Said she needed affection, conversation, bouquets
But I am how I am, so what can I say?
That strong hail last month took the tops off the wheat
Now folks there in Russia won’t have bread to eat
It looked real good, too – ‘til that chilled, cloudy day
Can’t predict the weather, so what can I say?
The daughter left home last year in the fall
Walked out in the night – doesn’t write, doesn’t call
I’ve read of young hookers on the streets of L.A.
I hope she’s not with them, but what can I say?
New calves on the north range got caught in that storm
It snowed late last spring and they couldn’t stay warm
My banker won’t like me when it’s time to pay
But what could I do? And what can I say?
Uncle Sam now possesses my only son
He hated this ranch – said life here’s no fun
Said I was a tyrant – all work and no play
He’s left me short handed, but what can I say?
Grazingland west of the road’s up in smoke
A bolt from the north flashed and struck that dry oak
Ground’s charred and black like the earth on doomsday
Was a sure act of God, so what can I say?
The tractor broke down and the baler won’t work
It was goin’ just fine but then stopped with a jerk
Perturbs me, I’m three weeks behind with the hay
I know rain’s a-comin’, but what can I say?
At times I’m not sure what life’s all about
Hard work is my virtue, of that there’s no doubt
I’d be praised by my Pappy, could he see me today
Kept my nose to the grindstone, what more can I say?
But now I’ve that lived long enough to look back
I wonder if Pappy was a little off track
Is a man only worth what he’s done in a day?
Well, that’s what he taught me – what can I say?
My wife was a helpmate, and pretty as well
I miss her good cookin’, her laughter, her smell
If I had one more chance I might ask her to stay
But those days are gone, so what can I say?
Sixteen’s awful young to be out on the street
I hope that girl’s safe and has somethin’ to eat
I remember her singin’ and dancin’ and gay
I miss her some now, but what can I say?
I wanted my son to become a good man
A hardworkin’ partner – that was my plan
Should I have hugged him or done some horseplay?
Oh well, he’s gone now, so what can I say?
Grim Reaper’s here early, he shows no respect
A tumor has got me, it’s here in my neck
Thought I’d live longer but I’ll soon be clay
Doc says there’s no hope, so what can I say?
My life’s almost over, I’m stuck in this bed
Been thinkin’ ‘bout things that I might have said
As I lie here a-dyin’, time fadin’ away
Not a word comes to mind. I have nothin’ to say.
Sweet Becky
Early during the last summer of the war, Mister Shivers decided to put in a crop of sweet potatoes and needed a lot of cheap stoop labor since the only thing that ain’t done strictly by hand is the plowing and row making, which he did himself with lots of help from Sweet Becky. Being as how my mamma was a good friend of Miz Shivers, she got me and my good buddy Ronny on as field hands. We weren’t but thirteen, but the work wasn’t supposed to be too hard and we were out of something to do and a dollar a day and dinner wasn’t bad wages for kids in 1945, even with a war going on.
Miz Shivers was a short, round, brown-headed woman with a little limp in her left leg and a sweet face that made people smile. Mister Shivers didn’t have much hair and was little and skinny and the kids called him “Popeye” behind his back. I guess he was nice enough since Miz Shivers seemed to like him, but he didn’t have much to say to a thirteen year-old boy – and when he said it, he sounded grumpy.
Mamma got me out of bed at five and put a field hand’s breakfast down me before I had my eyes open good: Orange juice, oatmeal with cream and brown sugar, three fried eggs, three pieces of fried sow belly, buttered biscuits and a big Bama jelly glass full of sweet milk.
Just as I was washing down the last biscuit with the last gulp of milk, Mamma looked out the window and said, “I hear Blackie growling. It must be Ronny coming – time to go. Work hard and mind what Mr. Shivers tells you and be careful and don’t get hurt – and here, don’t forget your straw hat.”
It was still dark but just before gettin’ on early daylight when we left my house. We were supposed to be at the place by sunup and it was a two mile walk, Since we were cutting the time a little close, we started out doing the Scout pace, running a hundred steps and walking ten. It got light enough to see when we got about half-way there and things were so pretty we forgot about the running part.
The ditches and little bayous were bank full of ground fog that looked like whipped cream with lazy smoke wisping off the top and slowly spilling over into the woods and fields and crossing the road in a few low places. A couple of mockingbirds were arguing about who lived where and the crickets were waking up replacing the sound of frogs. There wasn’t a people sound in the whole world except for our shoes crunching the oyster shell road. A rooster crowed. A dog barked a long way off. We didn’t talk. We walked soft and slow and listened and breathed it all in as we moseyed along like we had all day.
The bottom-half of the sun was still down and its top wasn’t quite up to the lowest strand of bobwire on Popeye’s back fence when we got there. He wanted to know if we knew the difference between mid-morning and sunrise. I just ducked my head and kept my mouth shut. Ronny thought it was a real question that he was supposed to answer so he allowed as how he did know the difference and right now was just about sunrise since the sun wasn’t full up and it was a long ways off from mid-morning.
“That little bit of popping off and being late will cost you two a dime.”
“A dime apiece or from both of us a nickel apiece?”
“Just a dime from you, Mister Speaker of the House.”
“That don’t seem hardly fair. There ain’t no work started yet. We ain’t missed nothing and we both got here at the same time.”
“That’s still ninety cents and dinner for a day’s work from a little shirttail boy which is more than I’m paying them Meskins. They make six bits and are damn glad to get it. Do you want to work or talk all morning?”
With that he turned and motioned for us to follow him. Miz Shivers and the three Perez kids were sitting under the big lone hackberry tree that shaded half of the backyard cutting slips from sweet potato vines and putting them in tubs of well water.
“Winnie, when you and them Meskins get four tubs cut, take them Meskins and Mr. Speaker of the House with you and set ‘em to cutting some more vines out of Noto’s field. We’re going to need at least five more tubs of slips by the end of the day. Shavetail and I’ll hook up Sweet Becky and lay out what you got cut there and we can start planting right after dinner.”
He turned to me and said, “Hey, boy, you ever drive a mule?”
“No sir.”
“Come on, I’m gonna teach you right now. Can’t nobody but me get a bit and harness on Sweet Becky or I’d teach you that too, but once that’s done, she’ll let anybody drive her until it’s time to come to the house and then she don’t need driving; she just comes whether you’re ready or not.”
“Yes sir.”
Ronny had taught me how to get along with Popeye. My guess was that “Yes sir” and “No sir” was about all the talking I was going to need all day long.
Sweet Becky was a little, light red, mare mule no more than nine hands high. Even though she took more after her little jackass daddy than her horse mamma, being more the size of a big donkey than a mule, she sure had a mulish look about her and, as it turned out, mulish ways. She had a black mane whose color continued on as a thin stripe down her light red back and spread out on her rump like a fan before running on down into her coal black tail. Her muzzle was a light gray color that mixed through the red on her cheeks as it ran up her jaws to the bottom of her black ears. Her eyelashes were snow white like a sweet little old lady’s.
When we walked up she was in the handling lot next to the barn standing on three legs with her head down and her eyes closed looking like a nice little old lady taking her ease in the morning shade. The only thing to cast some doubt on this serene image was the notion that her left rear leg wasn’t just up and resting off the ground; it was cocked and ready to kick the mortal hell out of anybody fool enough to walk behind her.
“Now don’t you just look sweet and gentle enough to work at the pony ride, you four-flushing, vicious, bitch of a mule straight out of hell. You sure ain’t fooling me with your play acting. I know you like a book, I do.”
Sweet Becky half-opened one eye, laid one ear back alongside her head and swished her tail.
“Shavetail, you stay right here outside the fence and just watch until I tell you different. Whatever you do, don’t get anywheres near that mule unless she’s hitched, you hear me?”
“Yes sir.”
Popeye went in the front door of the barn and came out through the stalls and into the lot carrying a lone, solid oak, three foot singletree. No bridle, bit, reins, collar, trace chains or harness, just a singletree. Becky slowly half-opened the other eye and laid back the other ear but didn’t move nothing else. Popeye tried to circle her at about three steps out to get around in front of her, since she had her rump pointed right at him when he walked out of the stalls. As he got close, she slowly came alive. As Popeye circled she turned, keeping her rump pointed right at him as he moved around her. He tried a little jig step or two to fake her out, but she was just as fast as he was and beat him every time.
Finally he ran right at her heels waving that singletree over his head and hollered, “Heah – Mule – Haa!”
In one instant uncoiling motion she delivered a double-hoofed high kick that would have sent the San Jacinto Monument halfway to Dallas had it connected. She missed by less than a foot and he was right under her left shoulder before she could recover – too far up to kick and too close to bite. They pirouetted around for three full circles in a ballet of jumpin’, cussin’, and bitin’ air when he jumped out in front of her with that singletree held high over his head and brought it down with a mighty crack right between her ears. She let out a swooshing noise through her nose and went down first on one knee and then the other. I thought he had killed her. Her eyes were wide open and crossed with one looking at the other one like they hadn’t been introduced.
As she was staggering back up on her wobbly legs, he was slipping the bit into her mouth and buckling the bridle on her poor old sore head. She shook her head like a wet duck dog shaking pond water and then stood there just as nice and ladylike as you pleased while he finished harnessing her and hitching her to a little wooden sled.
“Open the gate, boy. It’s time you learn how to farm.”
He drove her over to the hackberry tree and I loaded four tubs of slips on the sled.
“Let’s have a cup of coffee and I’ll explain what it is we’re trying to do.”
I couldn’t believe what I saw. He just dropped the reins on the ground and we walked off into the kitchen without him even looking back at Sweet Becky. She dropped her head, lifted her left rear leg and half-closed her eyes, and but for being hitched, looked just like she did when I first saw her: a nice old lady mule at peace with the world.
He got two big thick white mugs without handles like they use aboard ship and poured us up two cups of real black coffee with the grounds floating around in it. I was afraid to ask for milk or sugar and gagged it down like I drank it that way every morning.
“First off, we don’t plant eyes like they do Irish potatoes or seeds like they do corn. We plant slips. A slip is a little piece of the sweet potato vine that has been cut off to about six inches long and has at least one joint where some roots have started to grow out. I bought the vines from Noto as they lay in his field. That’s where Winnie is right now, watching the Meskins and Mr. Speaker cut vines. We soak them overnight causing little roots to grow out from the joints in the vine. That’s what was in those tubs under the tree, soaking vines. What we have in the tubs on the sled is the slips cut from those vines.
“We take the slips and lay them out on the top of the rows about two feet apart and the field hands come walking along and poke them in the dirt with a broom handle with a notch cut in the end taking care that the little roots at the joint is buried. Then they kick dirt over the hole left from the poking and step on the slip to pack down the dirt and walk on to the next one and so on. Then all we have to do is pray for rain the first two weeks and a drought the last two of the growing season and we got us a crop. If it don’t rain the first two weeks, the slips die – and if it does rain the last two, the potatoes rot. Once we get through planting, the rest is up to God except for a little early cultivating to keep the weeds down. Now you understand why most farmers go to church. Let’s go – we’re burning daylight.”
We climbed on the sled. He clicked his teeth and Sweet Becky started a slow deliberate walk in the direction she was pointed and answered the reins like a pet the mile or so to the field. I was standing on the sled waiting for her to back over us and kick our brains out, but she acted like this was all her idea, like she was going to do the farming and brought us along to watch so’s we’d know how the next time.
The sweet potato field was one of eight fields evenly divided off out of a fenced section of pasture land (one mile square or 640 acres) by further dividing it with one fence straight down the middle and three more across it leaving eight separate eighty acre fields to farm or graze. The way it was divided, the fields came out in one-half by one-quarter mile rectangles. Because the slope of the land, Popeye ran the rows lengthwise, making them a half-mile long. Planted two feet apart it takes 1320 slips to make a row. The row tops were four feet apart. That gives you 330 rows. That’s 435,600 slips. That’s a whole bunch of sweet potatoes. I was too little to do this sort of arithmetic in my head, but I knew just from looking at all them long rows that me, Ronny, Popeye, Sweet Becky and three little Meskin kids weren’t going to finish in this century.
Popeye said that Sweet Becky like to work to the left, just like racehorses like to run to the left, so he started her up between the first two rows commencing on the southeast corner of the field. That way Sweet Becky could go to her left on her first turn at the north end of the first rows. He said she didn’t seem to mind having to turn back to her right after she came back to the starting end to go back up the field. I wondered out loud why she thought she had to go left on the first turn since there ain’t no real good way to go up and down rows without turning left on one end and right on the other. What difference could it possibly make to her which way she turned first.
Popeye said, “Mules are a whole lot like wives ‘ceptin’ you ain’t allowed to hit wives in between the eyes with a singletree whether they need it or not. There ain’t no explaining some of their notions, but if you really put your mind to it you can learn to live with them with just a little bending here and there and still get the job done. On the other hand, if you don’t do it their way every now and then, it ain’t nothing but a peck of trouble from morning to night. The only real grief is figuring out what they have on their minds, not how come. Shavetail, there ain’t but two good, foolproof, logical ways to handle a female anything and I don’t know either one of them. That’s just the way they are and that’s good enough for me.”
When he got Sweet Becky started up the first row, he tied off the reins to one of the handles on the front tub to keep them up out of the way and started slinging slips off first one side and then the other so they fell about two feet apart on the rows on either side of the sled. Sweet Becky had her head down, her ears flopped forward and her eyes half-shut and was keeping a slow, steady gait of about 60 human paces per minute which gave the slip slinger just the right amount of time to set the slips without having to hurry and mess up the spacing once he got the rhythm of it.
When we got to the end of that first row Sweet Becky turned left, walked over two rows, turned left again and started back without Popeye ever touching the reins or saying a word. Popeye sat down on a tub, rolled a cigarette out of sack of Bull Durham and told me to have a go at it. I missed a few and had to run back and put them where they should have landed and then catch up with Sweet Becky and the sled. By the time I caught the sled I had overrun five or six slip spots leaving a fourteen foot gap. Things were already getting out of hand and I just got started. The only thing to do was grab a double handful of slips and put them down on the run as I was chasing the sled. I was getting winded and tired while Sweet Becky was just plodding rhythmically along with her eyes closed and a look of complete repose on her muley face.
“Shavetail, it’s hard to tell who’s the mule and who’s the boy by who’s doin’ the most work but it’s sure plain as day who’s the smartest. I don’t see the mule doing no running.”
“Yes – sir.”
“Whoa – you lop-eared sister of Satan. Whoa! Or I’ll jerk your damn teeth right out of your damned hard head if I have to get up and untie them reins to make you whoa you red willful stubborn bitch of a cross between a dumb jackass and whore horse. Whoa! I say.”
Sweet Becky stopped but laid her ears back and rolled her upper lip to let everybody know she didn’t approve of having her rhythm broken or her deep thoughts interrupted by a boy’s clumsiness in slinging slits. She was used to working with pros and had no patience with amateurs.
“Just get back in, catch your breath and don’t get in such a hurry. It’ll come to you by the time you get to the end of the row. Now see if you can get this little red bitch to walking again and working for you instead of you working for her.”
Popeye had a little grin on his face. I suspected that Sweet Becky had her own peculiarities about getting back to work.
“Get up, Mule. Hii, mule –gettieup – go!”
All I got out of Sweet Becky was a hide-ripple down her backbone that started at her withers and rippled back to her flanks.
“Shavetail, it looks like she’s confused about who’s supposed to be in charge here. Women or mules, you can’t ever let that happen, not even once or you’ll windup being the mule forever.”
I walked around to the side of her head and bit the mortal hell out of her left ear. She didn’t even look up. She started her mule shuffling gait down the row like nothing ever happened.
Sure enough, by the time we finished that half-mile row I was pitching them in there like Dizzy Dean. Popeye hopped off the sled at the end of the row.
“I’ll bring out five more tubs of slips. That’ll hold you two until dinner. Don’t worry about what time to come to the house for dinner – Sweet Becky will know when it’s time. Just give her her head and she’ll come on in, but don’t encourage her too much or she’ll get in too big a hurry.”
It looked like Sweet Becky and I had come to an agreement. She did her job of walking up and down the rows and I did mine of placing slips. She even knew to stop for fresh tubs while I dropped off the empties and reloaded the fulls without any orders from me. We turned out to be quite a team once we got the preliminaries worked out. I never had to touch the reins for the rest of the morning except to retie them to a full tub.
She even taught me something Popeye forgot to tell me. When it was about 11:45 according to my nickel-plated, genuine brass, Pocket Ben dollar watch, she didn’t start back up the next row, but turned down the house-end of the field and stopped at the nearest stack of empty tubs at the end of the row where we had left them. It took me a minute to catch on, but she knew that we were supposed to bring them back to the house to be refilled. This was the first time she looked back at me all morning. I put the two empties on the sled and she plodded on to the next stack and then the next, stopping briefly for me to load and stack them inside one another on the sled.
When the last two tubs were loaded, we moseyed back to the house and she stopped under the shade of the hackberry tree. She slowly turned her head toward the back door of the house, perked up her ears and let out a “Heeee-Haaw Heee-Haaaw” that made me jump a foot out of my brogans. Popeye stuck his head out of the kitchen window and hollered, “Dammit to hell, I seen you come in, you noisy old bitty. Hold your harness until I get my shoes on you contrary old bag of bones. I’m comin’ – I’m comin’ – dagnabbit.”
The omission of the Lord’s name and general mildness of his cussin’ meant that Miz Shivers was home and probably in the kitchen with him. Popeye came out and unhitched Sweet Becky, led her to the water trough and then put out a half-bucket of feed and motioned me to the kitchen door.
I had been watching this mule-man tenderness from my place under the hackberry tree where Ronny and the Perez kids were sitting on buckets and tubs eating a dinner of corn bread, pinto beans, mustard greens and sausage off tin plates with a bucket of milk and a t