Cows by the Highway
4/22/18
The cows by the Highway, cattle, actually-
Who but a ranch hand
Knows them as anything but cows, really.
Rectangular shadows in morning sun,
They arrive each spring
When the rain promises to stop,
A few hundred strong, slowly
Moving through fields out by the packing
Plant, then they’re gone in the fall.
I see them every day
As I roll up 5 to work,
Laying in emerald grass rich after winter rains.
They graze, lazily slap their tails,
Drink from a blue basin
By a wire fence near the breakdown lane,
The din must be deafening
As we roar past, but they show
No sign of being bothered,
Idly mind their own business,
Knowing nothing of the
Bludgeon, the butcher, the hook.
March Night, Oregon
Gales across the valley whip
Raging firs, slapping rain
Against glass, unabated.
History
Disappointment heaped upon disappointment,
it's apparent that death
is an optimal option,
Though as it winds down, I wish
To see what history will say
Of our current situation,
Whether America had a brief fling
With totalitarianism in 2025,
that ended when sane minds removed the threat,
forty-seven and his corrupt and incompetent administration,
and righted the ship.
Or will history record that 2025, and
Forty seven, ushered in the beginning of the end,
Unleashing chaos upon a warring world,
And the American dream of democracy, freedom,
And peace rent asunder; the Christian
Republican army goose-stepped all the way to Armageddon,
History is watching, history is judging,
And the country is at sea, torn apart in scrabbling factions
A million miles from uniting, or even understanding,
Except to know that our stature, our strength,
Our dignity, and our pride diminish
With each lie, every ludicrous, punishing executive order,
Forty-seven, scuttling the ship of state,
Listing hard to starboard, water running over the gunwales,
In a choppy sea. Mayday. Mayday.
Mayday.
Tenderness
Tenderness
March 8, 2025
It boils down to us then, this
Tender bond strong enough
To last a lifetime, and beyond,
Each kiss, each hand proffered, taken,
Held softly, dearly,
A half-century ago we paddled
An aluminum canoe up the Pickpocket River,
Deer along the bank, July sun baking,
A bottle of Beaujolais tied to the stern
Trailing in cool water, silent woods and
The splashing of oars, we laughed,
We kissed,
We’re still in the canoe,
Wondering what we’ll find
Around the next bend,
Mysteries still await at this late hour,
Let me pour us another glass
And celebrate us,
The resplendent sun reflecting
Off the deep green river,
Off your soft green eyes.
The Last Day of February 2025
The Last Day of February 2025
On the eve of a clash of historic importance, a rupture of world order, and a push ever closer to a precipice, over which promises strife, and war, and plunder, and an overwhelming sense of finality. The end of the Democracy
The last day of February dawns unnaturally
Warm, radiant skies; we took the bug convertible
Up through the hills, past spring fields, forests of fir
And barren, mossy oak, glimpses of Cascades, towering
Hood and Jefferson luminous white, majestic,
Past overlooks of verdant farmland stretching miles
Across the valley to the shadowy Coastal Range,
The last day of February the President of the
United States and his vice disgracefully assaulted
The integrity of an ally, double-crossed the leader
Of a country at war with Russia, historically our enemy
In the battle of Democracy against Tyranny
For the hearts and minds of the rest of the world,
And the potus and his vice broke our alliances,
Threatened world war, sided with tyranny, and
Dishonored the values of freedom, and history, and peace,
Pushing, pushing ever closer to war. We become the enemy.
Tonight, a glass of red on the balcony looking west,
Still mild, quiet almost, except roaring hotrodders racing
Down River Road, have been since Covid, nobody stops it.
But I have the stars, Cassiopeia, Pleiades, Venus, stars
Innumerable in western darkness, dimmed only by
The lights along the highway leading to the coast,
Distant traffic passing billboards and businesses
Before becoming rural, farms and wetlands running
Out to the foothills, and I, surrounded in my fortress
Of fir and cedar, watch from my ruins in the darkness
As we move into a grim, uncertain future,
Awaiting spring. Polaris stares down from the north, unblinking,
But I am without direction, at sea,
In a declining world. Alas.
Swan Song
Swan Song
Winding down the hill to the lowlands
Of Ankeny, flanks of the coast range
Whitened, a sky of broken clouds filled
With portent, but rain intermittent.
There were a thousand geese at the back
Of Pintail Marsh, supple shadows in dim
Afternoon light. Ducks lined the shore and
Traced trails across the pond, startled
By eagles. In the rushes by the entrance
To the channel lay one dead swan,
A Tundra Swan, and in the shallows
By the tracks, two more.
February 7, 2025
Dischord
Dischord
Out with the dog tonight, surprised
To see a first-quarter moon overhead,
Facing Jupiter, both dodging overcast through
Barren branches of big-leaf maple
And sodden fir,
Dripping with winter rain streaming
From the coast across the valley, blustery,
Traces of snow, the dog does his business,
Gives no care for the haloed moon through
Gauzy skies.
They can’t take that away, barbarous robber barons
Blindly, greedily orchestrating the demise
Of the Republic, dismantling the Democracy,
Forging a new oligarchy, of the rich, by the rich,
For the rich.
Today was a protest in Salem, true Patriots
By thousands, raising their voices in support
Of our country, virulently opposing the shredding of
Our Constitution, our Heritage, our dignity,
At the sunset of Democracy.
Tonight, the moon disappears, rain begins
Spattering onto the deck. The dog waits
At the door.
February 5, 2025
Ankeny, Pintail Marsh, Midwinter
Ankeny, Pintail Marsh, Midwinter
A pair of mallards cruise gracefully
Along the grassy edge of Pintail Marsh,
Quietly together, low in the water,
Preparing for spring.
A lone, small ruddy duck commands
The center of the pond, white cheeked
Blue beaked, only his wake
Splitting water’s still surface.
Monochrome leaden winter sky stretches
Uninterrupted from the Cascades
To the Coast Range, caught by reflection,
In the pond at Pintail Marsh.
When we were here last, clouds and sun
Gave way to a winter squall, a wall of clouds
Delivering darkness, and turbulent wind,
And teeming snow, a rarity.
And as the storm advanced across the valley
Twenty egrets, stark against the darkest grey,
Struggled against the gale, making slow progress.
And a thousand geese, in ragged formations,
Descend to a nearby field seeking refuge,
The egrets, in their staggering way, follow.
Finding refuge,
Fighting, against the odds,
For survival.
Feb. 3, 2025
The Cove
The Cove
8-30-1999
Before me the cove, shimmering light
on shallows, the dun mud of low tide.
Gulls feeding, stark silhouettes against diamonds of
morning sun, breeze shifting sprays of movement
over azure water, rifts of waves nudging
rocks and tangled kelp
along the shore.
Out a couple of miles a trawler churns north
Through the rolling surf of Penobscot Bay,
and beyond, Isleboro and North Haven Island,
gloomy blue shadows, and beyond, stretching to the horizon,
the open seas of the Gulf of Maine,
the open seas of the Atlantic.
I am still so connected to you, Helen, after so many years.
I am just a few years younger, now, than you were when you died.
I was a boy then, but now as a man I still feel you here,
your love of the ocean, this cove is yours, this briny air.
Your patience runs through me, your calm embraces me
And strengthens when I need it most.
I have children now. You never met them, yet I see you
in them, through me; your legacy passed, and passed again.
The sun, higher now, begins to warm,
and the incoming tide rises over the mud,
stretches to wash the slight strip of sand at the edge of the cove.
A sailboat glides across the mouth of the inlet,
bending against the wind, cutting the sea
with silent grace and speed.
“The Cove” was published in the author’s book, The Cove, published 2020, and available on Amazon.
The Last Day of the Democracy
The Last Day of the Democracy
January 19, 2025
The chimes will be ringing
in the Kremlin tonight,
With fireworks, perhaps,
in celebration.
James Garland Poetry 