DRY CRIK Journal

                           ….so long as we search
                           for something so faint most people
                           won’t know, even when it is found.
                                   - William Stafford (“Deep Light”)

A poet’s credo, a rancher’s romance,
unearthing details overlooked
in darkness and overwhelmed by days.

Black Widow between the bales, two
soft white eggs in web like moons
above the long scattered feathers

of a racing pigeon lost off course,
tired and thirsty, where the coyote
pup retreated one morning last month.

Flat top of the stack, barn owl pellets,
dark woven bones of mice and bats,
a raven’s nest of twigs in the rafters,

walnut shells and empty orange rinds
from the orchards miles away.
Fresh green tunnels gnawed

in the bottom bales over gopher
homes still under construction
where stink bugs congregate exposed.

Ground squirrels playing on patrol
for rattlesnakes awake beneath
the pole barn along the road.