Tag: winter

A Solstice Remembered

~ SamF

I thought October would take the edge off.

After all, there’s no way this fickle light

and a few chance rains

Could turn my head any further.

.

Now the garden is all dead,

The light,

All left to morning now,

Just like yesterday,

And then again.

Please give me this solace,

Wanted and waited for,

Just this day.

.

Until you visit me in December,

With your gauze of reckoning

Perched overhead.

.

Then, I’ll remember the river,

All fog bound and sullen,

Bit by bit,

Tearing to pieces

The lives of nothing.

.

I hope your storms will roar,

Dark, dripping days,

Left with just a little ray of light,

Catching one more leaf,

Falling,

Into some forgotten cradle.

Winter on the Eel

~ SamF

Suddenly, the leaves are all gone.

The storms gave ample notice:

Ignored.

.

The alders will now paint the day’s luster,

On a rare afternoon, posing

As a cruel cheat of Autumn,

Dripping spoonfuls of honey,

Across the big bends of a fresh river.

.

Evenings are still two months out.

.

Here, morning’s curfew still remains

As some lame excuse for the wind

Spoiling the silty corners

After the flood.

.

The easy drips from mossy rocks,

The rare percussion:

The work of silent, green water.

.

I’m trying so desperately 

To soak this winter into my bones,

As the water draws lines,

And curves,

And the circles hide things.

.

I know the kids still lean over the bridge,

Peering,

Into the green water mystery,

Waiting to see the ghosts

Brushing against the emerald velvet

Of winter’s passing.

Central Valley River

~ SamF

All these days start with hope,

Optimism,

And some serpentine skepticism

That stays put

While the water lies flat and glassy.

.

This valley fog,

Soured and pressing,

will harken feelings of home,

Summoning some seasonal, familial promise.

.

This is a cold morning:

River hosting winter,

Almost a thing of the past,

On the shortest day of the year,

Defining the deepest place of then,

Like the hottest sequestered August afternoon:

When, as kids,

We were shut in,

And left wanting for a calling evening breeze

Never to come.

Or, now, just a brief parting sky:

A blue never seen.

.

This is the Great Valley: Tethered in the cliche

Of fog

And heat.

.

In both:

Rain is forgotten,

In the wretched gossip,

That orchards will tell.

.

But here,

When the gentle boils of this big river

Still breathe steady,

The scope of years, lives and old people:

No matter how unreal,

Or long,

Turns, now, slowly into view.

They lived this,

And danced to the sound.

.

Hunker down, into this patient water,

Fish, sands and winter bugs still crawl.

Feel this breeze:

What should be gentle and pleasant,

Is biting,

Up along the fetch of a journey,

That is not ours,

But must be.

This chill is almost enough,

We should turn away.

.

Ultimately, though, this grey sky grabs me

Takes me,

Stretches me,

Into the fading call,

Of a day that just got started.

.

Postnote: this could be the San Joaquin, the Merced, the Tuolomne, the Mokelumne, the Feather, the Sacramento, or a whole host of small streams that drain the west slope of the Sierra Nevada. All these rivers regain their magic during magnificent California winters and were once home to people that lived in a truly splendid place now fading into a soon-to-be-forgotten glorious past.

Home is where the water runs from the hills.

New climates and old winter base flows

~ SamF

Gosh,

How the hydrology seeps back out of our bones,

Pouring across landscapes gone silent,

And waiting.

.

This is the way way it used to be,

Like some song playing in the corner juke,

When bars crowded early

And left well before closing.

.

This storm won’t give you resolution

Not yet,

Years will go by

Until the sun sets on a foggy bottom land

In the stalest of latest possible summers

When water is again a pastime,

As the next wind blows:

Turning heads, and raising the mutterings

Of those who still live out there.

Celebrating the 4th Rain

~ SamF

Like old days come to visit again,

Now the dampness will live here,

For a good long while, Defining

Hopefully

This place and this time.

Soon, the waves of hungry cold

Will take the leaves,

Peaches, pears, finally the apples.

Always the last apple.

.

Released, now

To a brief ease of playing in a fickle sun

Soon covered by the gauze of quick rains.

Rains that sneak through,

Leaving grand dripping choirs

And the late night sounds of wet soil.

.

The day opens to waters passing,

And the joy of new light.

West Coast Therapy Sessions

~ SamF

Remember the winter that barely passed a month?

And then came the sun.

Yes, still cool enough

To host lingering frosty mornings.

Until the heat came,

And February anniversaries

Were forever changed.

On that exact day thirty years prior

Snow, days of snow

Then ten days of ice five years later

Frozen,

With the surprise light dusting

Of sea level snow for a casual two year memory.

.

And then the rains would come again.

Now,

I tenuously hold on to a line in an article

Discussing the human experience

Of a changing climate:

There will still be good days.

Fractal Gardening

~ SamF

Obviously the pattern plays out a bit

Random at first glance.

Time worked into the edges,

And the small becomes large,

And the oldest wood grain

Of a leaning fence post stands tall.

.

A hundred little emergencies scatter out front

Swirling amongst the thousand arms of possibilities.

The intricacies of pattern,

The frustrations of patches.

Putting up a Christmas Tree

~ SamF

-OR-

Holidays of the Central Valley Suburbs

December fog,

Wearing, days on days,

Just holding.

.

These houses, now become exhibits,

Were never really new.

Always:

The years of potholed driveways,

Cracked pavement, a toppled fence,

And the bald tires on a car kept running

By visiting strangers,

From some other house unseen,

But always showing up

Just around meal time,

When a visiting uncle,

Now living out there,

Just happened to stop by.

.

The old garage in the backyard,

Everyone’s secret,

That decisionless haunt

Of misshapen mornings strewn about

Turning, in some methodical, timed way

To frustrated, wrenching afternoons,

And, finally, the long soft evenings,

If the drugs don’t turn weak

Or disappear.

.

All at once,

Spooled backwards, knotted, hungry

And free.

.

Kids would throw walnuts at passing cars.

And regret the open window

Yet appreciating the relief

Of an angry knock:

A chance at never again.

.

They wanted to pin us to the growth trajectory,

Instead of the stagnant complacency

Where we could just languish,

In the short, dark days.

Made easier,

In the the dim, grey lights,

Between holidays always celebrated,

Always.

Sketching the Klamath in November

~ SamF

The River is now a great bridge:

The one constant stretching morning

Across the entire day

All the while folding it,

Neatly

Gently,

Back into night.

.

In between:

Freshly poured green water,

Water of life,

Calling water.

Water that hides things

And

rarely reveals them.

.

Even the rocks revel in their newfound tones

Shining on their neighbors with the latest

Deepest

Hue of translucent

stained

Distant

blue.

.

Born of morning,

All the shadowed eddys,

Boxes,

And dark watching spots,

curiously,

Slowly,

Lengthen day’s best work,

In their icy stillness.

.

Dinner is jars of old elderberries,

And struggling greens, lost

Between the miseries of heat

And bugs and thirst

nearly quenched,

While seeing the path ahead,

Pitted, dense,

Still tough..

To where winter will set stride.

.

Cravings of sweets

in the soft, cloying dampness.

Chilled, but

cleansing.

All this:

From vistas of feet

on velvet landscapes,

To the endless jostlings,

Riding across this great bridge.

Sketch from the Orchard

~ SamF

As leaves loose summer’s grasp

They become ghostly ballerinas of the still air,

Glistening,

On the annual pilgrimage to winter’s soft cradle.

.

Morning here lingers well into the afternoon

And shadows replace light

As the preferred method of telling time.

.

Soon, the first winds will stir,

And the old days will be back,

If just for a moment.