It's not a date, it's more important than that

though I got the day and date wrong
this was the day I thought he would come

so I scurried around, making the place
presentable and attending to primping

stopping short of braiding and fancy ribbons
checked the dinner supplies, got the kids

calmed down, ensured they had dinner and
ran some cool water, checked the yard and

checked my phone, once, twice – wondered
is it him this time or me? it’s me, of course

the farrier comes next week, though the horses
appreciated the attention on such a fine day

        

The practical test

when can we declare the world
dormant for the winter?
is it time yet?

look: bits of green persist at the root -

by definition,
“it’s not time yet.”

the leaves have grown colorful at last,
though they have not fallen.
"it's not time yet."

ice frosts the roof
clear til the midmorning sunbreak.
"is it time yet?"

here's the practical test:
breathe out. does it steam? 
breathe in. does it burn?

break out the winter comforts,
whether or not you pass.
It's time when you say.

Driving conditions: mysterious

that mist that forms over snow
when the road is half past slick
it’s a mystery, and hides mysteries

for instance: did you know
in the dark, all deer just disappear
from the face of the earth

like a conjurer’s best trick? until –
there they are! ghosts in your
headlights! and - are you slower, yet?

Over Imnaha

cloud bank over Hells Canyon
look twice!
mirage mountains

Up on the benches

sturm und drang illuminates the
slow cooked isn’t-it-spring-yet? winter season.
when summer (the-real-deal) finally comes, we're
seared in a flash fire courtesy of lightning - and
our valley settles in to be roasted. the experience is
quickly devoured - before washout comes -
before the first snow of August falls

Half sonnet for the usual and accustomed ways

sometimes when the snow falls, I think about

all those people, countless as the stars, who

lived here and left for warmer river bottoms

and winter camps every year, year after year,

in all the years before. old timers still follow that path,

know it or not. they've fired up motor homes and headed

Southwest to the desert, and taken short-sleeved shirts for show.
  

they'll be back in spring, though it comes later every year.

Early bird

Nothing so ordinary as robins nesting in tall brush.
Dee-dees calling, the fog lifts and morning begins.

Bacon on the stove; too cold for worms and early birds.

                                     

Eyes on the moon

there’s a hunter’s moon tonight.
I know it’s there, somewhere
under the horizon or over the rain.
it plays hide and go seek behind

the single incandescent bulb
in the lamp on my desk. you’ll find
it nestled under the thunder of
crabapples dropping on the roof.

hunters, I can guarantee that all
the deer will come seeking dessert
tonight in my yard, though they may
bound away should the neighbor dogs

moan; then stop quick: like that. it’s said
in the dark the woods kitty strolls right through
our town, though the safely acclimated
house cat doesn’t care. she simply opts

for self-hypnosis through pure comfort
in front of the log fire. we take turns pretending
not to hear even the dazzling, scratchy tracery
of rodents making rounds in the cabin walls.

To do: (At the end of your rope)

Fix a fence.

Change a tire.

Call home.

Take the dog fishing.

Hang out.

Find a knot – hang on.            

Work planning

Ninety degrees in the shade – but whoever gets to stay there?
Hot rocks radiate the illusion of winter won’t touch us here.

Lascivious oils perfume the air, hot from the pines
and my canteen looks dirty and dented. No plastic water bottle

for me, just dampened canvas wicking away heat,
cold water inside; no stale beer (that’s for Sunday after

Saturday’s party.)  It’s a quarter after the lunch break
and no one can pull themselves out of the air conditioned crummy.

 “Let’s check the map again,” someone says, and we burn 
another quarter hour of freon on someone else’s dime. 

“We sweated enough today. Tomorrow we’ll go fight fire.”
Beer and barbecue and women await on the next holiday with pay.

Williwawallowa

Kestrels take a break
everywhichway the wind
solid as air

Ku for a cross-prairie road

Good manners

Sunday: I could have sworn but
Monosyllably
Is forbidden and bad taste
                                              

Wet Solstice, Wallowa County

Living on the dry side, yet
wet on wet on wet
thunder over the mountains

for the Josephs, Tuekakas and Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekht

Cow Parsnip - Heracleum maximum

  What cows?     
   asked the elk 
   Contemplating        the tender green
   the fat ribbed pod
   It swelled
   day after day

   And cracked open
   an umbrella against the sun
   White bouquet
   prairie nosegay 
   Then came the bees

 Susan Whitney

Under the stand; outside the exclosures

what a flat line that is,

browsed beneath the aspen -

what a dark straight strip

down the white bark -

it’s a mystery how they grow

sucker after sucker, leaf after leaf

bare branches in winter; bright

by fall; trembling in summer -

limelike in the limelight of spring

presenting Populous tremuloides

in starlit snowbanks, featured

performer in the dance of rut

star of not a single table

til the bright eyed browsers come

to nibble at midnight.

Zumwalt note

The Aschenbrenner place,
new green roofs and all, is over there -
though just one original building still stands.

Now it sports new green roofs. You can see
them from this spot, where the
Zumwalt school house once stood.

That school - by day, that's where
my father and his siblings went: though
English was their second language.

Over there at the homestead, the family
German (Volga) Russians all -
"only talked German" at home.

A note from Gail West

Half sonnet for fall

Fall – the world’s a zone of perceptions

rich and dark and threatening and scattering

every thought in a poem never spoken

for thousands of years, never shared -

or shared too many times in too many ways

it’s going to be a hard winter, they say

but still and joyful and fearful for all that

First fruits at the edge of the prairie

digging stick in hand, I seek you, and

roots and leaves give your hiding place away  -

though thousands could be you.

there are only two of your kind, one

fibrous and more work to chew than not -

diet food for those who don't need it.

still couse, you comfort food, you lure me to

turn over the rocks like any bear - to dig

among the biscuit scablands one more time.

Harsin Butte Scramble show-me

let me show you this one:
it has a fox den patio,

brush suitable for perching,
tall grass elk-squashed

just so, and all the luxury
furnishings you'd expect

for a home without walls
way out on the prairie.