Scott Preston
We are saddened by the news of Scott Preston’s passing on March 21, 2007 in Missoula, Montana. http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005114853
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Click here to return to the homepage of Western Folklife Center
We are saddened by the news of Scott Preston’s passing on March 21, 2007 in Missoula, Montana. http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005114853
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
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?”
GROUNDING
Today I left my office,
glowing computer screens.
ringing phones and
demanding messages.
I drove to a house in the country,
haystacks,
pickups and
baa-ing sheep.
I broke a hay bale and fed the animals
I patted their thick, wooly backs
and tromped through pastures.
I drove back to the office
and worked with a grin on my face.
I have shit on my shoes,
and all is well.
RAKING WALNUTS
All animals are equal
but some animals are more equal than others
- George Orwell
Times are hard
for the squirrels.
Nuts are scarce
and dogs are plentiful.
As I rake walnuts
I’m reminded
of pigs and dogs
. . . in cahoots
shelling out misery
to dumber animals.
A wheel-barrel full
maybe. I’m guessing
just from the heap
its height and slump
not enough, really
even for pigs.
The squirrels sit:
bookends
atop the power pole
watching every stroke
of my rake, every walnut
flung on the canvas
the canvas dragged
before the pigs
who squint their royal
fat eyes and grunt
as I rub salt
on their walnuts
as if I were stroking
a warm ham.
WINDSICKNESS:
WHY MY FATHER NEVER MARRIEDHe had it:
a cancer so insidious
it killed tolerance first
and when nothing was
left to beat
not even the brow of a snake
he puffed himself up
into a storm of regretand cursed the wind:
the wind’s no good.
Half a chance
and it’ll steal your breath
from under your nose.
It’ll whirl
the hat off your head
and make your clothes dance
up close like a ghost
or a woman just blown
into townand when I came down
your mother wasn’t around.
SPAWNED-OUT
This is death, you know
the instinct
that steers the salmon
out of the ocean
and drives her upstream
to a gravel bar
where she wriggles
a nest for her redd.
Having done what
she could not dream
she turns crone, withers
anchors eel-like
among river bed stone
sets her lower jaw
fish-teeth gnawing water
she’s too weak to breathe.
And her roe waits for some jack
to roll the dice, to set
in motion alevin, parr, smolt –
the last good luck
for which her death
is hope.
BACK TO BONEMy mother gave birth standing up.
When her water broke, both boots filled.
She screamed. She always screamed.
But Dad never jumped
at the hook in her voice.
He let it fly
by his ear like bad advice.He had decided – long ago –
she’d have to reel herself in
get tough, or go down the road
to Bone. She toughened.
Gave birth to a nine-pound boy.Dad finished drilling winter wheat.
Unhooked the “three-point.”
Smashed his last good thumb.
They tried to save the nail, but
had to knife it out, clean
through the quick.That night, I lay between them
mixing tears and blood
the way they believed.
Not a sound.
Just my heart pounding:
country music in my ears.
IN PRAISE OF BLUE-EYED COWBOYS
Those eyes
catch me
by the bootstraps
flip me over once or twice
until dizzy as heck
I’m falling.
Those eyes
play cowboy songs
twang my heart strings
pick me black and blue
pluck my music.
Those eyes
look way down
into
the best part
of me –
my place of joy.
Touch me there!
Those eyes.
Oh, sweet Jesus.
Those eyes!
AND ROY ROGERS SANG THE TORAH
North we go a-roaming from Wyoming to Montana
All upon a tankful of George Custer’s diesel gas
Jesus may be savior on the local reservation
But still we eat our snow peas on the Powder River Pass
Eastward in the gloaming from Wyoming to Mt. Rushmore
Searching for the faces in the North Dakota night
Ripping down through Deadwood in the name of Rapid City
To see Abe Lincoln glowing in the cold arena light
The Seder means a shuffle low from Buffalo to Casper
Cruising for a synagogue and good unleavened bread
Jesus ain’t no savior on the old Ucross Foundation
And Jewish New York cowboys need a place to lay their heads
Gave us such a chilling there in Billings, South Montana
Tracts of propaganda from the non-semitic class
Bad to find such narrows in a land of sky-filled prairies
But still we eat our snow peas on the Powder River Pass
A CALL FOR WESTERNERS TO SAVOR THE RICH LAND LEGACY THAT IS THEIR BIRTHRIGHT
By Stewart Udall
From the archives of the Western Folklife Center, the following is a transcription by Deborah Fant of a talk given at the 17th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada on Saturday, February 3, 2001, sponsored by the Nevada Humanities Committee. Used with the permission.
Good afternoon.
I think I should begin by telling you why I’m here, why my wife and I came from Santa Fe. There are several reasons. One is that we have a long connection with the folklife movement in this country. My wife, some of you here know Joe Wilson, that wonderful Tennessee hillbilly, my wife joined with him over 20 years ago to revive the National Folk Festival and she played a very important role. She is well-organized and knows how to get the most out of people, and someone said, Joe Wilson, “Who’s that woman helping you? She’s sure a hundred-percenter,” And he said, “No, she’s a thousand percenter. She air conditioned Hell.”
I have been following this Gathering for some years. Hal Cannon has been an old friend of ours, and I think it has taken on the stature of a true national gathering. There isn’t anything like it. And I compared it with my wife to those stupid alumni gatherings at universities – this is a Gathering for the whole West. I wanted to get the feel of it, I wanted to hear the poetry. And since I was a child – you don’t know why or how this happens – I’ve had a fascination with poetry. I’m going to begin with a poem. It’s very simple, it’s what you poets out there know as haiku, except it’s American.
To make a prairie,
It takes a flower and a bee.
But flowers alone will do if bees are few.
It’s not my poem, it’s Emily Dickinson. You can just think of it, she never saw a prairie.
I’m going to recite it again.
To make a prairie,
It takes a flower and a bee.
But flowers alone will do if bees are few.
We’ve been here for three days. And apparently, judging by a couple of things I’ve seen in the press, some news arrives slow in Elko. I wanted to tell those who aren’t already familiar, I’m an old-timer, been around a long time. I went to Congress in the middle 1950’s. Most of the people are gone who I served in Congress with. One of my favorites was Alan Bible, a wonderful senator from Nevada. He was chairman of the Parks Subcommittee, and the national seashores and lakeshores that we put around the shoreline of the United States, he was primarily responsible for.
Forty years ago, two weeks ago today, I had started with President John F. Kennedy as Secretary of the Interior. I was the first person from Arizona to be in a President’s Cabinet. My wife and I had six children, and I was age 40, and that puts us in a category by itself. And then the President appointed Bobby. And we lost out.
Because I thought I had the best job in the Cabinet, I stayed for the full eight years. I am an environmentalist. I was part of the beginning of that movement. There are, I’m sure that you all recognize, various kinds and degrees of environmentalism. We don’t have a church and you don’t have to believe certain things. We’re all entitled to our own opinions.
Twenty-two years ago we went home. We went home because I decided to pick a fight with the federal government. And I’ve been fighting them for the past 22 years.
OIL
Soft rainsqualls on the swells
south of the Bonins, late at night. Light
from the empty mess-hall
throws back bulky shadows
of winch and fairlead
over the slanting fantail
where I stand.
but for men on watch in the engine room,
the man at the wheel, the lookout in the bow,
the crew sleeps. in cots on deck
or narrow iron bunks down drumming
passageways below.
the ship burns with a furnace heart
steam veins and copper nerves
quivers and slightly twists and always goes -
easy roll of the hull and deep
vibration of the turbines underfoot.
bearing what all these
crazed, hooked nations need:
steel plates and
long injections of pure oil.
GS 1958 western pacific
REEDS
"Why should we cherish all sentient beings?
Because sentient beings
are the roots of the tree of awakening.
The Bodhisattvas and the Budhas are the flowers and fruits.
Compassion is the water for the roots."
-Avatamsaka Sûtra
I A Beach in Baja
“…on the twenty-eighth day of September 1539, the very excellent
Señor Francisco de Ulloa, lieutenant of the Governor and captain of the
armada by grace of the most illustrious Señor Marques de Valle de
Oaxaca, took possession of the bay of San Andres and the Bermeja Sea,
that is on the coast of this new Spain toward the north, at thirty-three
and a half degrees, for the said Marques de Valle in the name of the
Emperor our King of Castille, at the present time and in reality,
placing a hand on the sword,
saying, that if anyone contradicts this
he is ready to defend it;
cutting trees with his sword,
uprooting grass,
removing rocks from one place to another,
and taking water from the sea;
all as a sign of possession.
… - I, Pedro Palenzia, notary public of this armada, write what
happened before me.”
II Kadekaman.
Cadeu Caamanc.
“Creek Reed” : San Ignacio
(aggava. hawk aggvacaamanc creek of the hawks)
Señora Maria Leree is ninety-eight years old
rests in a dark cool room at full noon.
A century-old grapevine covers the house. Casa Leree.
“she still tries to tell me what to do”
– her daughter Rebecca
lived forty-five years in Los Angeles.
Dagobert drives a beer truck all day every day
and some nights,
from Guerrero Negro to San Ignacio.
Says the salt works at Guerrero Negro
Sell most of their salt to Japan;
Rebecca plays the mandolin
“I need some music down here.”
Dagobert trucks beer to ranches
all through central Baja
over those rutted roads.
“I have six kids in Guaymas. I
Get over to see them three days a month”
South of El Arco
a hummingbird’s nest with four eggs;
four Mexican black hawks
a caracara on the top of a cardón
a bobcat crossing the truck track at twilight
a wadi full of cheeping evening birds
Cats walk the fan-palm roof.
Her two sons are painters.
– “I am a poet.”
“You came down here to Baja for
– inspiration? Poeta?”
Yes, on these tracks. Rising early.
Dry Leather. Deep wells.
Where we breathe, we bow.
III Eat Your Self
The bulls of Iberia – Europa loves the Father;
India loves the big-eyed Mother Cow.
In the Thyssen Gallery in Madrid there is a painting by Simon Vouet – “The
Rape of Europa” – from about 1640. The white bull is resting on the ground,
the woman sweetly on his back. A cheerful scene, two serving women, three
cherubs, stand by to help this naked lady and the handsome eager bull. His
big eyes are looking up and back, flowers twined around his horns. The
Goddess giving herself over to huge male energy? making modern Europe
with its states and wars?
Bony cows of Baja.
Body of grass, forbs, brush, browse.
Dried meat. Charqui “jerky”;
(Little church up the arroyo.
Leathery skinny twisted ropy Christ
figure racked to dry)
Quechua ch’arki:
Dried to keep, good years and bad –“With this meat, I thee wed”
the MUSCLE dried jerked meat
the SKIN shoes, saddles, sheaths
the BONE buttons
the FAT buckets of lard
HORNS & HOOVES glue.
loose vulva, droopy udder
the MILK babesbony old cow scratching
horn head on a mesquite limb –
Sweet grass breath
spiraling outward.– the hoof of the cow is a track of the grasslands
the print in the grass is the hoof of a cow –her BREATH life
mother bos
in her green-grass body at
Arroyo de Camanjue – arroyo of reeds –(old rancherias called
idelcagomó – creek of the large ranges
cahelulevit – running water
idelibinagá – high mountain
idelabuú – plateau of the mountains)The elderly ragged bearded vaquero
coming down the track. On his dusty horse.
“Command me!” with elegance.“Adiós!” with such finality.
“Go with God!”With this meat I thee feed
with this flesh I thee wed.
This is an earlier version of “With This Flesh”
from Mountains and Rivers Without End.
HUSKING
It is arcane knowledge,
and if you seen one, you’ve seen them all,
the small hooks
attached to leather straps
hunkered in a box of tools
at farm sales.
Like reaching into a well for moonlight,
I select one, wipe off the dust
with a month to spare.
When my father unwraps the present,
his 77th birthday, hands swollen, covered
with liver spots, puffy fingers tugging
the bright paper, I catch
his sheer recognition,
the faint smile, the backwater
of sun stirred silver by minnows.
He centers the hook in the palm of his hand,
fastens the straps,
and I am told again
how it was done,
walking beside the horse-drawn wagon,
stumbling over stones,
the dry stalks a stairway winding
away from words,
how the ear was grabbed, hooked,
shucked in one flying motion,
and tossed, rows of golden teeth bared,
against the bangboard
to drop into the creaky-axeled wagon,
how hands grew numb in gloves
made with two thumbs because a thumb
wore out quicker than the rest of the glove,
how the breath was white clouds,
the snakes deep underground,
tangled like old harness,
how the pheasants slinked soundlessly away
like pickpockets in a crowd,
how there was a need to be perfect,
miss none,
because times were hard.
We sit, mute, exhausted from the field’s raw vowels,
longing, separating.
CONFERENCE
I draw a dozen breasts
on a wide sheet of paper,
give them wings & try
to disguise them as airplanes – fashioning
nosecones & propellers from the nipples.
But Mrs. Gray notices anyway
& my mother is called for an afterschool conference.
I’m outside on the emptied playground while they talk,
the chains of the swing
taut with my young weight.
There is a cottonwood tree
next to the swingset, & I try to rise
high into the opinion of leaves
where secret voices would tell me
what I should and shouldn’t do.
I think of Adrian dressing the indignant cat
in a gingham doll-dress. I think
of the scarecrow that wears my grandfather’s hat & count
the five clear notes of the churchbell down the road.
I wonder what it’s like to be the fish
swallowed by the larger fish. Then my mother
is walking toward me. “What happens now?” I say.
She lights a cigarette
& settles into the swing-seat next to me.
She doesn’t say anything but points
to the pale, indefinite moon
that floats above the cottonwood.
She exhales a sigh of smoke
& then pushes off from the sand, beginning a sway.
“See the moon up there?” she says, “Let’s see
if I can touch it with my feet.”
SHOSHONEANEvery thing that roamed this world
had a song of its own.The sky was something to be thought about.
Way out this way. Way out that way.Black night. Black night.
This was on Coyote Lung Mountain,when animals & humans
spoke the same language.Blackbird, black seed, black obsidian bead.
And all things echoedlike an owl’s call in the black night,
every thing that roamed this world.I myself am going back, he said.
Going back, he said.Black night. Blackbird.
I myself am going back,back to Coyote Lung Mountain.
Way out this way. Way out that way.
A COWBOY’S LARGER MEANING OF DOWNTOWN L.A.
While listening to
Robert Hardy read Wells’
War of the Worlds on cassette,
it came to him fast, like
the quickened gallup of a
range-weary palomino, that writers,
they mostly believe they’re here
to be wisdom’s conduits, here to
say things that’ll give a heart
solace, a mind high flights
of fancy, give a whole populace
the most demographically wide-spread
prosperity possible, think they’re
here to teach us love’s three
sweet mysteries (the why and how
and best time of day to die
a dignified drunk in downtown L.A.),
share with us the larger meaning
of a largely meaningless life
they say is ours, short of a
good fit in cowboys’ boots.
But nary one wise word
is heard as to the efficacy of a
steaming broad-brimmed bowl
of kidney beans, a great big huge
wedge of hot-buttered cornbread
cooked barely above a just-right flame
flickering, like cactus made of
fireflies, in a little tucked-away
New Mexico mesa where the sun’s
just gone down.
CHARLIE GOODNIGHT. By Andy Wilkinson (Grey Horse Press, 1994. 5205 92nd Street, Lubbock, TX 79424-4313). CD and cassette with accompanying book, $30.
It’s possible that the particular rhymes and tempos of folk and country music are such that songwriters in those circles are simply able to craft epics in the space of one song effectively enough to abstain from the need for larger cycles in their work. One recalls, for instance, Carl Sandburg’s famous remark upon first hearing “Buffalo Hunters” that the song was a perfectly complete novel.
There certainly haven’t been any Nashville or Austin based projects to match so-called rock operas like TOMMY, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR or THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY. Surely the reason has not been a lack of epic depth and breadth in American history, especially in the West.
Andy Wilkinson’s CHARLIE GOODNIGHT arrives then as quite a departure from the writing traditions of its root musical influences, at least in terms of its visionary structure. One serious close listening should be enough to disrupt the complacency of any writer previously content with self-contained songs – although most of this album is composed of songs that hold up well as individual pieces. As a unified work, it haunts a listener's sense of the past with power far beyond the sum of its parts.
Wilkinson chooses to tell the life and times of the great pioneer cattleman from an impressionistic, as opposed to strictly realistic, stance. That’s not to say that documented history isn’t strictly adhered to, nor that a chronological narrative sequence is absent. His songs inhabit the emotional history of the events he describes rather than a scholarly perspective. This song cycle doesn’t replace the Haley biography – it enhances and even enlightens it.
There are no weak songs on this album, no moments that feel like filler or partially realized tunes rushed into production to meet a release deadline. Wilkinson has chosen to vary the sonic experience of the cycle via the addition of several guest vocalists in key roles, allowing the narrative focus to shift to other figures populating the Goodnight legend. The Maines family must be one of the musical heritage treasures of this country. In addition, to the great Lloyd Maines's superb production and guitar work, his daughter Natalie and sister La Tronda sing lovely leads on “White Women’s Clothes” and “A Woman’s Life,” respectively.
“An Eye On the Boss,” sung by Buck Ramsey, makes a damned close run at humming the magical refrain of the Goodnight-Loving Trail away from Bruce Phillips’s classic song. “Voices From The Grave” may well be the most important song in this collection, its modal overtones eerily evoking the sound of a sea-chanty. One of the most ardently overlooked influences on Cowboy Poetry are the great work-song traditions of the sailing ships of the 18th and 19th centuries. Texas is, of course, both cattle range and sea coast, a phenomenon a very few writers (Guy Clark and Robert Earl Keen come to mind) in Western-country music have noted. No one has taken the notion quite this far before. Consider the impact of British investment in the Texas cattle industry – consider that “Lasca,” the preeminent Texas classic cowboy poem, was written by an Englishman. There is a powerful amount of possibility in making the British connection for Cowboy poets, and Andy Wilkinson has struck a monster first chord toward doing it.
The price of the package includes both CD and cassette. The book that accompanies them is written and illustrated in impeccable taste, including notes, credits, a bibliography for further reading, striking portraits of the guest musicians (a special mention for Deward Campbell’s artistic contribution is required here), even a map of the area that concerned Goodnight during his career is included. In conception, execution and just general intent, this is one of the outstanding projects yet produced by the Cowboy cultural renaissance.
THE QUINTESSENCE OF QUIETUDE
Stunned by the silence,
awed by the immensity of the surroundings,
with unshed tears of joy,
I know what I am doing &
where I am.
Knowing that my quiet is my
most important & valuable possession,
I revel in my newly-found valley,
enclosed by mountains & grazing-fields,
protected by icy roads, &
Canopied by limitless sky. Am
welcomed by raptors encircling,
challenged by critters burrowing, but
entertained by creatures scurrying –
the eloquence of solitude !
Early-on confused, abused by urban noise;
missing the barely known georgia cotton field
of the barely-known granddaddy once in hand;
yet knowing of all this missing, but
deeply missing something…
I know this: my love for this
bit of land, this northwest earth
I now call “home”,
is firm, is final, is that long-sought-for
missing something…the quintessence of solitude.
With sustained noise, chaos reigns. (1)
Now in solitude – away from the clamor,
the cacophony of teeming masses;
Now in quietude – able to listen, to hear
that missing something…the eloquence of silence.
The most companionable silence… (2)
the ultimate trusting of self, to be alone
with the wind, with the memories,
with newly-found harmony…
& to be a caretaker, preserver, of that silence.
Silence precedes the profound
& attends the emotions; (3)
is beyond the mind, is
rapture, is golden, is
an enchanted place, & (4)
Having left behind the blasts of agitation,
having cast-off such mental chaos,
body & mind rest from wandering, finally,
discovering in the quintessence of silence
harmony’s eloquent hum of quietude…that speaks to me.
(1) okri (2) thoreau (3) melville (4) iyer
April 23, 2005
April 23, 2005
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