DRY CRIK Journal

Black silence broken only by barn lights
as amber holes in the chilly darkness,
fuzzy flames and proof of humans

out there, otherwise in my world
of animals: the bear foot, toes twisting
in the dust below cows calving,

oaks undressed for acorns, limbs scattered
like dirty clothes on the way to water
beneath real clouds out of the north,

the smell of moisture, sudden gusts,
the feel of rain. Each turn a story:
Bill Greasy’s homestead below the figs

where the creek stops summer in the draw -
all the dead men locked in his head
set free by landmarks along the way

in his place, his flesh and history. Slim,
Snap, Sam, all the dogs barking
in his dreams – the sorrel horse and King

remembered together. Below the dirty
highwater ring before the dam, where
his Dad bucked off in ’46, slammed

headfirst into the bank, died two weeks
later in the high country at Marion Lake
where my father and I in 1958

propped fly rod cases beneath our ponchos
for an all-night Sierra thunderstorm –
caught more big fish than we could eat.

It’s how we’re related, all the old names
when people were few, plaited characters
from tough landscapes that haven’t changed.

                                       - for Earl McKee