Tag: wind

To the Dogs

~ johnbrandall

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A couple of dogs were here yesterday when I arrived, and they have stuck around.  

I have been giving them food, so I can’t be too surprised that they have stayed.  I had an old can of soft food stashed away on the upper shelf of the corner kitchen cabinet.  It didn’t look too bad; they ate it.  They’ve also gotten a few of the heart-shaped Newman’s-brand treats, which are basically doggie biscuits.  And I’ve given them some kibble I had tucked away in a mouse-proof bucket back in the main bedroom here at Farm, dateline Traderight, MO.

I’ll give them what food I have, for as long as they are here, and then I’ll restock with some fresh food when I return.  Whether the new inventory will be for these two on some later visit or for my own dog Hugo or for some other rando dogs that might appear somewhere down the road, who knows?

They slept out front last night.  They growled and barked a few times.  Somewhere around one or two in the morning they woke me with barking and I had to pee anyway so I went outside.  Even before I stepped out the front door I could smell something dank and rich and garlicky, a very deep and funky body odor let loose into the wild.  Skunk.  There was no doubt about it.  Like a bomb had been released...


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Returning A Star

~ johnbrandall

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The next morning the coals were there, buried but lurid, glowing like rare orange gems.  Across the distance of a cold night they were still hot despite being abandoned, despite being covered by a heap of fine grey ash as the prior day's fire faded in upon itself.  I walked around looking for pieces to add to the fire, to bring it back. I was out at Farm again, waking up chilled from a night in the unheated farmhouse. I was in search of fresh fuel, the arms and legs of trees, fodder for the next go-round.  Honey locust, sycamore, cedar. Walnut, hickory, oak. Just-fallen twigs, young limbs, old broken trunks half-rotted away, wet with the promptly melted snow of a Missouri winter.  On top of coals prevailing through the wind and dark of night any wood will do...


Click here to continue with fire, bluebirds, osage orange, and the sun...

Blood Types

~ johnbrandall

Thursday. I’m in a goose-infested corporate office park parking lot, waiting for my wife, who is inside a Red Cross, donating blood. Some machine is out in the distance, intermittently backing up, backing up. Emitting that insidious beep, beep, beep, beep. Other than that, the soundscape is pleasant. Sound of the wind. Birds. Sparrows, a cardinal, the geese.

There are empty swathes of spaces in the sprawling, interconnected parking lot. The office buildings are arranged in a wide ring around the parking spots at the core. There are still a number of cars parked up close to the buildings, packed tightly, the businesses in those buildings still humming along, essential or stubborn, it’s hard to say. Who’s gonna get close enough to inquire, to stick their nose in it?


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Hacienda Camp

~ johnbrandall

I gave praise
to steel you confidence.
You gave welcome
to feel me love.
Rooster sang crow
to share us morning.
Eugene broke fast
so we'd build house.
Water washed clean
so we felt ourselves.
Earth sprang mountain
to keepsafe sun.
Wood took flame
so we'd have fire.
Wind gave owl wing
and we had night.

Versus the Wind While Camped Near a Failing Farmhouse

~ johnbrandall

Oak tree at Lee-Vaughan Farm (photo courtesy Patrick Vaughan)

I know it knows we are here.
As we talk about the wind it quiets off.
It collects itself in the far corner of the field,
takes a running start, launches at us again.

It seems to want something.  I wonder
if it takes as much pleasure in sending a tent
flying as we take in seeing a tent on the move.

It translates a gunshot, it stokes the fire.
It pries metal from the shed,
it pulls the hat from your head.  

It opens one door, slams another.  
It absconds with the coffee filters.
It leaves dirt on the doorstep,
it tries to speak in the trees.

It takes popcorn from the plate
but doesn’t eat it.
It takes twenty dollars from the ledge
but doesn’t spend them.
It loosens your hair in the air
but it does not love you.

The wind is how hay stretches
It is how rock changes color
It is where the smoke goes

But at dusk
the wind follows the light
over the wide horizon.
We unpack our things
and lay them about
like feathers.

As a fire burns
we listen to
a whip-poor-will
sing into the still air
of the night
as it winnows
its lonesome away.

Billy tending to a tent on the move (photo courtesy Patrick Vaughan)

I am Attending To a Sunrise in Jamaica

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

First Full Day — morning

I am attending to a sunrise in Jamaica.  Rightly I am not awake yet.  Waves, waves, dolorous waves.  Peltering shores at dayfall.

Why is it getting light in the west before it gets light in the east? The east is dark, blue.  A tiny boat out ripping the water is black.

Last night a jumbo airliner flew in from Costa Rica, I’m sure of it.

Brett got a taste, Pat a tree.  I put a tiny leaf in my pocket & smiled at the smell.



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