DRY CRIK Journal

Dressed in color, she is pretty in the rising light –
poppies torch hillsides where granite meets clay
mixing gray outcrops that hold and decompose

high above the oaks pushing light green leaves.
Smiling brightly, she seems to miss the murmur
of grasses requesting rain. Yet in the air, the mass

unrest builds within this hard crust hidden beneath
the waves of emerald blades bolting for the sun.
At this moment, this juncture, this balance

of sun and rain, anything can happen as she shifts
to leave ahead of eagles north for the summer.
We are attentive to every gesture tossed our way.

Cool is all we got over the weekend, missing several good chances for errant thundershowers, dark cells sailing around us. Light frost the past few mornings – its thaw teases, raining briefly as the sun lifts over the ridge (7:50 PDT). A better grass year than last, the calves are fat – rainfall amounts to date are not that much more than last year’s totals. The south slopes north of Woodlake, “W” Mountain, have turned already and in the steep granite on Barton Point at the start of Dry Creek Road, the grass turns dull. 10-day forecast clear into a warming trend.