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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Dawn low in the south
almost gold on the dry,
east slabs stacked upcanyon,
still too early
to pray for rain.
Barns half-gone,
one hundred fifty tons
of hundred sixty-five dollar hay
in three months
bucked to the truck
and spread to the hills
like offerings
to hungry gods.
The cows wait now
for the diesel�s purr
with growthy calves
that pull them down
ten days before
we put the bulls out.
Long, crisp shadows of sycamores
reach across the dusty horse lot,
I put my finger on the point of Sulphur Peak
despite the forecasts on every local channel
promising perfection for a week �
good news
as a storm brews
somewhere close.
Too soon spent, the days
of work and contemplation.
I hear my stories rest
with how it used to be.
Yet the Buckeyes
still cling to leaves burnt dry,
each crooked twig, a ghoulish
fingernail aflame, dripping
fire or blood in streams
at their feet around
All Soul�s Eve
as month-old calves
bust and run in gusts
before a chance of rain
and new, green feed.
We begin again
to chase the weather �
feed hay, cut wood,
and wait to germinate
another string of possibilities.
Coyotes are circling around our truth.
- William Stafford (�Outside�)
Time before the calves come
to fill the canyon
with the scent
of limp placentas,
wet hides licked
to stand and suck
for the wobbly first time �
time to smell milk
on their faces.
Time to find the rifle,
oil the dust away,
locate that brutal place
and stow it
with a box of shells
in the pickup
until they�re big enough
to fend for themselves.
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