How much that we do, is in hope of something else?
The moon is full,
Seed heads hang heavy on stalks of grass,
Leaf growth is slow.
It's hot.
August, like march, promises much.

How often are we disappointed?
How often does September come, like April,
with not enough rain,
or to much?

  We tie flies in summer, dreaming of winter fish.

During lambing
in the spring,

We tie flies, dreaming of summer steel head.

  Now in late summer I irrigate fields, in hope of fat fall lambs.

High prices/Lbs. on the hoof, and enough water in the creek to hold us till the rain comes.

In farming, we live in hope.

Prayers have become pertinent,

And we are not far removed from the inconceivable divine.

I won't tell you where I have been,
I will tell you that I was in Western Montana,
when really it was Northern Idaho.
I will tell you that I was in South West Idaho,
When really it was the Southern,
Eastern part of Oregon.
   People have a tendency of destroying what they love.
I will not tell you where I have been...
Only of the places that I have loved.

Winter now over, fear now subsides. What is done is done. Lambs, some of them, nearly sixty pounds, suckle and “gain,” Some of them even a pound a day. Waterlogged fields and fear of frost, in a matter of days becomes a distant memory.  There were more “singles” born this year than I would have liked, but singles gain well and fatten quickly. Scarce feed last year in September, manifests it’s self in this year’s lambs, only a %170 lamb crop. It is what it is; I’ll have lambs early to market, and spend less in getting them there.

There is something to be said for that.

   Driving past vineyards and cyclists today I railed against a machine that I have no ability to fight against, and I passed my frustration on you. I am sorry that my own short comings, frustration, and anger, will become your frustration with me; were you were to become my wife. It is an idea that terrifies me if I was honest with myself, and horrifies me were I to be honest with you.

   Driving to that farm today, the one for sale on the internet, again were I to be honest, broke my heart. That farm (to my eye) is a place full of a life lived. In my mind, in the way that the house, garden, and barn yard were laid out, was a place where I could see a man walk from the mud room to the shed, harness horses or idle a tractor, and while they ate, or a diesel tractor warmed up, that man would walk down to the cow byre and throw flakes of hay to cattle, and there he would stand, for just a moment before turning toward his work, and think on all of the things that he had done well in the year past, and consider the things that he wished that he might have done better.

   My dear,

                I am a man who already knows what I have done well, and I am a man who at times, wishes I could have done better.  I lament my failures, and (in regard to my farm) am sustained by the things that I have done right. I mean to offer no offence; but I consider my love for you in very much the same way.  I know what I have done well, and at times know that I could have done better.

   I once said that renting a farm was like dating a woman, and that owning a farm (by contract) was in a way like being married to a woman. What little I know about either, I know in my heart that someday I would like to own a farm…. And that soon, I would like to be married to you- 

      With all of my love-

                    Me-

     

The greatest sadness... The greatest joy.

I've four of the greatest dogs I've ever owned at the moment.

Gwenn:
six years old,
finicky,
loose eyed,
Wide running,
impatient,
sensitive and tough.

Jett: 
Five years old,
Prick eared and always reliable.
hard fast,
maybe a bit sticky eyed,
knows her lines,
patient.
   She'd gather sheep through an artillery range,
No bother,
Sharps the word and quick's the action.


Murphy:
three years old,
head strong and brilliant.

O'deilla:
Three years old,
sensitive,
intuitive,
heads up...
and blind.
The vet described the cause of her blindness as a massive bacterial infection,
That caused her ocular nerves to swell,
and to her guessing,
made her blind within a few hours.

It's funny....
My dog,
named after the patron saint of ocular diseases....
Is now forever blind.
She is my greatest sorrow...
and still my greatest joy.

     

Starbucks 25/2/15

I am looking for clarity amongst madness-
My birthday three days ago
and Mother's today.
We celibate our births
While lamenting the loss of the breasts
that gave me life.

What did I dream of 34 years ago as I nursed?
My hand absent mindedly grasping at my mother's hair
Her blouse
Her finger?

Did I dream at all
Or was I merely content?
     
      Recently-

I have fallen in love with Dorothy Day
And I hope that she is never canonized.
I want her to be my saint.
I do not want to share her.
I want her all to myself in a cabin on the coast-

There

Our child would sleep contentedly between
us as the water boils.
    We would make love on the bed

She and I-

Later I would pour her bath
Near to the wood stove.
  
   She would smile at me in the dim light from the wash basin

I holing our child,

She content,

and me her good man.   

Sunday Night Obituarys

Five dollars for the collection plate
And five twenty five for a beer-
Eight for a pack of smokes
and whiskey to banish misfortune
  
Never mind the cost. 

Weather Report

Snow falls and the winter woods are quiet.
Song birds flit from branch to barren branch.
Their chirps and alarms break the pregnant silence.

.Chickadee, junco, nuthatch, and house wren.

Harrier.

Wind from the NNW 10-15mph
Eighteen degrees

Fog develops late in the afternoon
while herons stalk the parcel brown marshes.

The streambed
like coffee grounds
Lays black, against the buckskin bank.

Snow falls on the quiet winter woods.
      Chance of precipitation 80%

The winter woods

January's nearly at a close,
Hopefully by now,
King Wencerslas's man has gathered enough wood to see him through.
With any luck we'll all see the spring come.

Soon lambs to be born,
Buds to burst,
and the grass to grow.
 
   This time of year
Farmers sit idle.
"We've nothing wrong with us"
We tell each other over pints.
We're just bored.
Soon spring will come.
Soon we'll have our work to do.
But for now
We wait.

Now
The woods sit idle...
The fields lay fallow,
And rust gathers on the moldboards of our ploughs.

It's no wonder that Christ comes in the middle of winter.
Had he come in July
We would all have been too busy cutting hay to notice.

Once

Once
I had nothing but you in my eyes.
It was then that you filled my eyes.
And I would sit at the edge of the field like a fox.
and amazed I would watch
As bees wicked the spring's nectar from the flowers.

It was then that I would sit amazed.
Amidst more than I could have created alone,
There amidst that witch we had created together
And there amazed
I would give thanks.

Now in winter with the bees I remain.
You and I together
Have ravaged all of the summer's stores.
Now alone I return home
The fox
to a wreath of moldered bones
and an empty larder.

 Hearth and home,
   An honest remedy against the cold and damp.
The house looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting tonight.
Fog and drizzle settle about our abode like an old jacket,
And wood smoke hangs in the branches of the trees like incense,
But without rising...
Everything is enveloped within the spectrum of light.
Tonight,
God is not far from us.
No prayers rise in wisps to a celestial kingdom amongst the stars,
For there are no stars,
Only rain and mist, fog, and woodsmoke.
Christ has transcended the stars,
Put on an old traveler's coat,
And at our fire he sits.
Our prayers need go no further than the breath from our mouth,
No further than our hands can reach,
No further than the light of the fire extends.
Christ comes the traveler and is with us.
He is the comfort given,
And the comfort giving.
Transcending the stars Christ broke mortal bread
And from a perfect cup, he shared the wine.
Now,
With grubby hands, we break the immortal bread
And from a broken cup we share the immortal wine
And our prayers
need go no further than the breath from our mouth-

The belligerent ewe-

    "Get up" I say to the belligerent ewe.
She's a new one to me,
One that I've purchased along with sixty others.
"Get up" I say,
"Your feet can't be that sore!"
She's one of three limpers that have come with the bunch I've just acquired.
"Get up ya dosy bitch!!!"
My temper rises now,
I have things to get done, and my dogs are confused by her unwillingness to move.
I am as frustrated by their frustration as I am of my own.
"Stand up ya fucking cunt!!!!"
I'm beyond compassion now,
beyond reason.
The dogs are nervous,
An unwilling ewe is one thing;
Enough to cause them pause,
An angry "master" is a thing enough to cause them doubt.
Here in this moment
Now!
Here is the place that I have come to fear,
Here is the fury, that I hope to out grow.
Now! Not later!!!
Let anger subside.
Look too your dogs,
Their fear
Their trust
Become now,
Not later,
Now!
Become worthy of their faith, and their trust.
Look!
Now!
Not later, in regret!!!
NOW!!!
Look now and see an old ewe,
her feet sore.
Yes she'd rather burry her head in a hedge
and die there rather than be pushed about!
But have compassion!!!
Her unwillingness defines her.
She is unpleasant,
yes.
But would ever I wish to be cruel?
Who does it serve,
my cruelty?
None.
Only my pride.
Now!!! Now!! Now!
Breath,
Step back,
Smile....
look with compassion on those whom you not only depend on,
but love.
Let your compassion define you...
For your creatures can only be what they are...
love them for their limitations,
thank them,
envy them,
Because they are defined by their nature,
And your are defined by your compassion,
and your ability to conform to their nature...
a nature
that you did not create,
but one that you must enter into...
a structure that you do not define,
but instead defines you......
Make this your living....
Make this your livelihood,
that in molding your self to this nature,
you find your self anew....
Beg forgiveness....
Grow....
Invent yourself daily,
in this way find yourself.
in this way, your anger will subside,
your frustration diminish.
In this way you become what you have not been before.


 

First Fire-

Autumn's chill seeps through the eves of summer.
Blood thickens as frost settles, and the chorus of good king Wenceslas,
From across fall turned fields,
Sounds dim in our ears.
Summer's bounty now laid in wood rick, haystack, and larder,
sit idle,
banked against the winter's cold-
later to be placed on Christmas tables, laid in mangers, and the woodstove-
Tonight at the door Jack Frost has only left his calling card,
if you are wise you know that he will return.
   Greg Brown's album "Dream Cafe" becomes pertinent again with the turning of the leaves, With Christmas, the heralds proclaim the birth of christ, the return of the tomtin, the rail king, and his accomplice the scarecrow.
Tonight-
Summer nearly at it's end
The first fire of the season burns as a testament,
It's warmth a manifestation of a covenant,
a labor and a joy.
It says to us-
That love will sustain us another season,
And that for us-
Love will endure-
 

Cigarette smoke lifts and coils from my right hand, twisting and spiraling in the porch light, I am slightly taken aback by the immensity of it. It's hard to imagine that the whole of it could be condensed into my lungs. Initially I began smoking to emulate my father. I don't begrudge him his smoking, and I have never smoked to excess. One of the earliest memories of my father is of the smell of his woolen sweaters, and the smell of pipe smoke mixed there within; the smell of freshly plained violin tops, and varnish. The memory of his thin hands are as indelibly marked in my mind as were the fingers on his right hand by the tobacco that he smoked.
   But I am grown now, and at times I am surprised maybe by my childishness. When I was young I would pinch loose tobacco leaf from the butler's pantry, from canisters of my father's Drum; and I would pinch it into primitive loosely rolled smokes that I would share with my friends. We never thought to emulate movie stars or the Marlboro man... We only though to emulate the men that we hoped someday to become. These men were far more tangible than the images on billboards; they were our fathers, grandfathers, our uncles, and brothers. They were the men in who's sweaters we had buried our heads, and in who's hands we had found comfort and escape form the limitations of childhood.
 Our mortality to us then was beyond the scope of our imagination. We charged the ramparts of fortified imaginary castles slaying enemies to our left and to our right; our own death as distant too us then as was compassion for the imaginary slain who littered the ground at our feet. We were poster boys for why young men can be convinced to go to war. In our minds we held our ground and defended each other at the Battle Of The Bulge, and in our ration packs would be a pack of lucky strikes.....

Fallow,
now the furrow
the coulter cut's through the ready ground.
Spring time's turnings
headlands turned
once flailed
now moldbord turned,
The  plough cut's through the ready ground.
Hope springs eternal...
Each spring in the ploughing...
Despair is turned under...
and hope is ever renewed.

December 2012

I am fighting the urge to sleep. Days pass as they are apt to do, and little do I notice. I am finding it hard to write, words escape me, remaining elusive in the clutter of days. Three women talked in the living room (as dad slept) of babies, life, loss, and miscarries.
I wish I to had been asleep as well.
I sat ten feet and a wall away, involved in a conversation I was not part of... And yet knew all to well. Even now I don't know what to make of it all.... I would have gone out, left the house and gone to the field... But for fear of creating a void in my wake, letting a cold draft in as I went out the door. Now my father is awake, Brigid and mom carry the conversation, dad's voice is nearly gone these last days, as if he is speaking from another room far away. I can only imagine.
It is a distance between there....
(the place where he has gone)
And here....
(the place where we remain)
That hardly can I fathom..... 
Soon he will pass beyond out sight.   

Maybe........

The rain falls in ribbons

Rhythmic, consistent, chaotic.

To stand in it,

To stand in it, 

in your naked skin-

Is ecstasy.

Each drop

       Like love

Sharp and unrelenting,

How long?

How long could you endure a lover’s touch

Before you turn in your sleep toward her?

How long could you endure the presence of god?

Before you were driven mad?

And in your sleep

Touched so…

Which way would you turn?

The rain like a child’s cry in the night,

You curse the hour

As the rain, like ribbons

Seeps down across the broad if your back,

And pulls you from your sleep.

Love,

for a time,

like the rain,

avoids the small of your spine.

And in the beginning

Those places the rain does not touch-

You think of as your own.

But love,

Like the rain,

Creeps,

Like ribbons,

Across your whole being.

And now that place in your being…

No longer belonging to you

But to her…

Belonging to a needy child lonely in the night.

Rise now,

Turning to her your accomplice,

Turning toward him your masterpiece-

With all of your frustration,

With all of your fear,

Rise

To stand naked in the rain-

                        Endure love as long as you are- 

Not sure about this one-

She-

A rosary of berries.

Her fingers

Juice stained and sweet.

I converse with her at the spring.

I drink rain water

Pooled

From the nape of her neck.

December

Bees wick nectar from her skin,

They anoint her lips with honey-

Shelter me from the winter,

And I will build you a house,

With seven Chimneys,

And a fire in every room.

Warm me, when I am cold

And I will cloth you in the winter.

For your feet

Seal skins.

For your middle

Tanned hide of dear.

For your shoulders

The fur of bears.

Woman of the hen house

Woman of the hearth fire

Flock and fold

Dear one

Dear one

Dear on of my heart.

Bare for me my child

And in return

As life springs forth from you

In spring, I will coax life from the ground

And in thanks and in supplication-

I will bear home those fruits to you. 

Turn us loose-

My mind

Like a button drawer.

There

Where things are compiled

You will find me-

There amongst the string, and garden clippers,

The keys, broken Swiss army knives,

There amongst the tape measures and tacks,

There amongst the needles and thread,

The barbed hooks,

I am.

My mind is the canyons of my youth…

Where we rode the norths,

Like a school yard.

Our colts brash and impatient

Their breath billowed like incense in the autumn air.

Like prayers-

“turn us loose” they said

And we like them were wild.

“Turn us loose” they said

Turn us loose to slide

Haunches slide

Theirs and mine

Down through the breaks,

As quarters and lose change

Shale and skree 

Slide before us

“Turn us loose” we said

 I like them

And them like me-

            Were wild.

For my mother-

Looking for my  father tonight.
Now,
Now the page is blank.
Are you there?
Love,
You who will come after,
You whom are to come?

My father is gone.
My children, before me are gone.
Are you there,
You who is to come?
Still before me.

In that place left empty,
by those gone before me?
In that place left filled
by those who came before me?

Are you willing,
To take on what was not yours
To begine with;
And will be yours now?
The wight of it is not insignifigent.
It will be a burden to you,
And it is something of you
I can not ask.

Though,
If you are willing to go into that place,
I would hope that you might find joy.

That you would find comfort,
and be spared the sorrow that I have known.
And in comming into that place
be spared the sorrow
That I might have inflicted;
And that you might find your self there,
In the sorrow yet to come....

Willamette
Valley
Early summer 2009


Watching the sun come up this morning I’m thinking of Iran,
for better or worse, tearing it’s self apart, traffic on the highway, concerned
only with it’s self, and what to make for breakfast. A load of “whites” churns
in the washing machine until replaced by a load of “darks” and then hung on the line.
   Sleep rarely comes quickly anymore, even more rare is sleep uninterrupted from night until morning. Thoughts of cancer, love lost, children lost before birth, shortcomings, and failures plague my dreams. It is not surprising then, that standing in my garden early this morning, I am consumed by a sense of grief. I lament the weeds, plants not thriving for what ever reason, beds not finished to my satisfaction, projects around the house and shop unaccomplished. It is more than I would ever hope to bear.
   And yet love is tangible. It is a fallacy to think that it is not, and I would call anyone a liar who told me it was not so. We dwell in a world where love not only is an idea, or a concept, or a myth. It is attainable; Attainable in the midst of sorrow, loss, frustration, anger, grief, and cancer.
   I went to get the paper this morning, and for the first time in years, it was not there. Canceled, for lack of 34.00 a month, a cancer cutback if you will. Anyone who tells you that sacrifice, suffering, pain, and failure are not inherent in love; I would call a liar. And yet here I sit… And I am blessed. I still have Sundays paper which I was unable to read on Sunday. I have raspberries in my garden, enough not only for my self, but for
my family. I pick enough for three breakfasts, and return to the house.
In the kitchen, water boils slowly in the kettle for coffee. I make an egg, toast, and yogurt…. With raspberries. The sound of a knife over toast is some how comforting, the solid sound of my favorite coffee mug, and breakfast plate on the table is satisfying. The rustling of the paper, pages turning, brings humor…. I am blessed.
  And now here I sit, my day elegized already, as the sounds of my family waking and shuffling from bed to bath, stairway to kitchen come to me through the walls. I am blessed.

Willamette Valley Early Summer 2009