You can easily imagine Barker Ajax as a ranch hand, but a farmer? Well, it’s possible. Might’ve been in the early 1990s, the old west of the past century. Turns out he was hired primarily to keep felonious pests and inquisitive varmints away from the cash crop. Wrangle dogs and corral various critters. This he could do.
Of course, he had his trusty sidekick, The Black Gang. And he needed to lay low for a peace.
SUMMER. A FARMER’S DROUGHT IS THIRSTIER.
Our well is dry. Only poison oak profits. Wind, an eraser, blows pale topsoil to neighbor's farm down road. Tan grass, like plush shag carpeting, refuses to live.
Nothing to drink.
Must buy hay to feed slender steers. Who are losing weight and eating pine seedlings, which sigh. Short crops shudder from the searing Dryness, a dune of dusty desert storms across parched pastures.
Yesterday I gave the animals pith helmets and sunglasses, So the dogs look cooler and the mules smarter.
The pigs left for the beach.
FALL: GETS WORSE BEFORE GETS BETTER
Not too much to say about Fall. Fall down and die. Turning brown and dry. Brittle. Days shorter, dark longer. Colder. Darker sooner. Time seems to be Running out. Me, too. Still running...
WINTER: SENSUOUS SALAMANDERS DO THE DIRTY DEED.
Sensuous salamanders do the dirty deed in the crystal waters of our new pond.
Snowflakes, no pair alike, melt in each other's arms. We live on suddenly waterfront property. A stream sprung up, sprung up in two places and came together, like the long legs of a true love surrendering to a fertile delta.
Frogs sing backup and argue noisily among themselves must be about Sinatra. Doo wap or not doo wap, that is the question.
Green grass waves at the bottom, drowning, screaming, silent. There's water everywhere, and tired puppies never wipe their muddy feet.
SPRING: A NEW BEGINNING IS NOT REDUNDANT
Feathery hawks float like hell's angels, casting dark shadows, finger puppets on horizontal pasture walls.
Psychodelectible mushrooms grow in cow reminders, sprouting, erect penis seduced by the sun's lust.
Twin fawns hopped over our fence eyes startled to learn the grass really is greener.
Wonder why I should be surprised to come home from church to find the fawns gone.
