RITTER MOUNTIAN

I was sixteen, living in Leona Valley California, it was the early 1960’s and I had been working my first real job on weekends for a local rancher named Ralph Ritter. He had hired me to do a little of everything, fix barb wire fence, plow fields, dig ditches pound in metal post and trap Mexican cattle in pens that he grazed on grass and chaparral on Ritter mountain. Ralph was in his mid 40’s, a Korean-war vet, strong of medium build, with a perpetual grin that left you wondering what he was thinking. He seemed to love his freedom and life as a rancher even with its long days and physically demanding work. Before going to work for him, when I was about 13, I watched him and two of his cowhands shoot and kill with a rifle, then butcher six steers so fast that the sections of beef still moved as thy lay on the back of his pickup after being tossed there by his blood covered workers. It left me with a youthful impression that these were tough men not to be messed with. One Saturday after working for Ralph for several months, he informed me that we were going to drive up on the mountain and water those Mexican cattle. He would drive an ancient tanker truck and I was to follow him in his big 1964, 4x4, Dodge, power wagon. Up the mountain we started, it was going to take at least 45 minutes to reach the cattle because of the narrowness of the road and the elevation of the mountain. The dirt road was full of ruts and washouts, and as we slowly crawled up the road the tanker, in front of me, dripped and splashed its contents. After about 35 minutes this teenager had been lulled into a state of youthful inattentiveness. The right front wheel of the power wagon dropped into a big rut that I had not noticed. I was driving with only one hand on the wheel. The bump yanked the wheel out of my hand, the truck shot to the right and came to rest over the embankment I looked up to see the tanker truck with it’s splashing load of water slowly disappear around a bend. Looking out the right window I could see only sky, It was hundreds of feet of drop-off too the bottom of the mountain, nearly straight down! Slowly I opened the door and eased myself out of the truck not taking the time to kill the engine. I stood in the middle of the dirt road staring in shock at the white power wagon with it’s frame resting on a soft dirt edge, leaning downhill with both right wheels in thin air. Nearly twenty minutes went by until I heard and than saw that tanker truck with water still dripping and splashing, come backing around that bend. I felt small and in trouble, going over the cliff may have been easier than facing Ralph! He stopped the water truck about twenty feet from where I was standing; a chill went up my spine as I heard him set the brake. Ralph exited the tanker truck, shaking his head the grin was still on his face. I thought that he was walking towards me, my brain raced to come up with something to say. Walking right by me without saying a word, he went directly to the power wagon that was still running, hesitated for a moment, then slowly reached into the cab of the power wagon and disengaged the power wench. As if this was something that he did every day he moved to the front of the power wagon and pulled out about twenty-five feet of cable. Dragging it by the hook at its end he went to the tanker truck and proceeded to wrap the cable around the bumper and frame of the old relic. Ralph returned to the power wagon, reached back into the cab engaged the power wench and stood back. The wench began to do its work. I stood there in aw as the power wagon slid over the side of the drop-off and for a moment hung in air, than slowly, very slowly, was pulled back on the road by that powerful wench. When the truck was back on all for wheels Ralph jumped into the cab disengaged the wench and set the brake. He then reversed the process and rewound the cable. He turned to me, with that same grin still in place, with very little emotion, said. “We need to get those cattle watered, try and be a little more careful”. He turned, walked back to that ancient anchor, got in it, and drove back around the bend, leaving me standing next to his Dodge power wagon. I learned a lot about life that day, but most of all I learned that Ralph Ritter was a very special bigger than life man. Thank you Ralph!

What an amazing sky greeted me as I walked Willow this evening. Feeling a little melancholy I searched the end of day sky. To the north was a solitary massive cloud that gave the appearance of a giant battleship with a steel gray hull and a Viking bow that projected forward forming a dragon’s head. The ships superstructure was made up of white flat dome bubbles as if deposited by a child who had blown them there in play. This ship lasted for only a moment then drifted into the ordinary. To the east over Mt. Lemmon hovered a huge irregular pastel pink rippled pancake cloud with complementary gray patches all framed in powder blue. Stunning! To the south at very high elevation almost touching space, was an umbrella of small evenly spaced gray and white tinged with pink cirrus clouds that stretched from horizon to horizon. But it was to the west that the real show unfolded as though the north, east and south had been but a simple warm-up for a magical unfolding of creativity in which the Holy Spirit painted unthinkable beauty in real time. A magnificent fire ocean of reds, orange, blues, pinks, grays, all highlighted with pure reflective white that flowed from west to the middle of the sky just over my head. It was as if waves pulled by some unseen lunar gravity were directing this water vapor display to this twilight desert beach. Simply far too complex and breathtaking to give fair description, but is it not always that way with GOD and his handy-work. As though it were an afterthought, when the sky became black and stars blinked on, the full moon appeared and danced above that now sleeping ocean.

TREE OF LIFE

You are the journey’s end,
And peace is at your base,
Bright light flows through your canopy
And shines upon our face.

Yes, JESUS will be waiting there
To greet us all with love,
And feed us from this beauty tree
On fruit that hangs above.

And SPIRIT you will sing to us,
Your words will fill the light,
And we will sing infinity’s song,
For there, there is no night.

And GOD the father will declare
That all is good and free,
Rejoice and lean upon his love
And feed upon his tree.

Yes, this TREE OF LIFE is but a door
HOLY TRINITY will be our way,
A journey for our souls to start
With GOD we’ll rest and stay.

Now the time has come for you to choose
What path you will go down,
So come with me to the TREE OF LIFE
Where GOD’S true love is found.

MEAT MEETS SPROUTS

If you desired sprouts and avocado,

And I was covetous for a steak

Would this be a deadly horror

That would condemn the lofty cake.




Must I hide my humble potato,

And fill my plate with oats

To dilute my hungry testosterone

With holy cheese and grouts.




OK! Your beauty is the measure

If I stumble for you, I’ll fast

As I ask for pure forgiveness

For my meat and potato past!

BREATH IN

Breath in the night air

As glistening waves hold loose

Their captured moonlight.

PONYTAILS

Running, these fillies along city trails

They’er flapping and spinning their short ponytails.

Some plump and some slender some shapely some not,

But all catch the eyes of the men as they trot.

Some pull their dogs in tow on their runs,

All bounce their boobies and rotate their buns.

What glee for the men as they pass on the street,

To ogle those ponytails right down to sweet feet.

So ladies continue to run in the morn

Because that is the reason that all men were born.

REPOSE

I like the word repose
It is a place that the body goes
And the soul follows.

MY DOG WILLOW

Willow is my jack Russell dog

He is loyal to his core.

Though he likes most everyone,

He loves me even more.

Willow is a trustworthy friend

To always stay beside

There are no conditions in his life,

His will lives in my stride.

Willow is a courageous dog,

In him no fear is shown.

He challenges every dog he sees,

And patrols and guards my home.

Willow’s energy comes from a heart

That beats with spirit and joy

He’s won me as a friend for life,

This dog’s a good bad boy!

Willow’s focus is sharp and clear

How good simplicity can be,

He has no master only friends,

This dog is truly free!

ASH GARDEN

Your love is a dying ember
Sparking from a fire,
Fading as it arches,
Its path consumed Desire.

My heart, a high cloud rider
Falling from the sky,
Crashing through a sunset,
Learning how to
Die.

Regret your shrouds unwelcome

In my hiding place,

Where dreams are formed and nourished

By tears upon my face.

True love, you’re but ash memory

Turned cold upon the soil,
No nourishment for our garden,
No flowers for my toil.

MUTE FOLLY

Gazing into the horizon

Of blinding prismatic sunsets,

Distracted from the precipice,

Hypnotized by the crashing roar,
As cold saltwater froths and explodes

Against unyielding rocks of impending doom,

A poetaster unknowingly preparing himself

To step into his own illusion abyss.

IF LIGHT SURROUNDS YOU

Approach night as if it were tomorrow

And death it need not be an end with sorrow

If light surrounds your beginning and your end

Then this life is just a passing sailing wind

To blow us from this spatial solar shore
To God’s celestial ocean to sail for evermore

WAR HORSES

Warhorses below, horizons will form,

Gray billowing ghosts before the great storm,

Lightning flashes silhouettes the red sky,

Piercing tumult goes thundering by,

From all directions chaos will come,

Killing, slaying, the peace until done,

Torrential wills lift swords pointed high,

The weakest wills, on fields will they die,

And cycle back continue they’ll grind,

To finish their winnowing of sleeping mankind,

Then when their killing fields are bloody done,

Scarred agents of death, to horizons will run.

Within a short decade, a year and a day

The next generation will forget their blood way,

Then steel hoofed warhorses will form one time more,

As mankind continues their death and their war.

FOCUS

What becomes of it
Does it simply float away
Carried by the winds of time
Somewhere to just decay.

Or does it ride a ray of light
And end up somewhere new
To seed itself in a virgin heart
And forget what it went through?

The answer is beyond my reach
So I will let it go
And try to focus straight ahead
And not on what is below.

LOSS

I am beset by sorrow.

A waterfall of dry tears cascades,

And cries my loss away,

Down to my empty reflective pool,

Where hope flows to the edge of my life,

To sink my heart to the bottom,

As the surface ripples my emptiness,

To the hidden places of my soul.

ACACIA

Banish my spirit from my chest,


Dislodge my soul and wrap it up,


Remove your loveliness from my mind,


Collect it all and place within


A box of carved Acacia wood.


Seal it with your words of blood red wax,


Adorn it with a script so cruel


That speaks the essence of a fool.

Meditation Sunset

Endless shades of gray,

Crimson red-orange yellow dark blue,

Clouds regal with enchantment,

A meditation of majestic twilight hue,


Black silhouettes a waking night,

Complexity radiates this palette sky,

Set free, spirit soars to realm

Where GOD teaches heart and soul to fly.


Rosary of stars turns sky to prayer,

Casements open to visions divine,

Among angels grace revealed,

Will transformed to love enshrined.

MY HANDS

They have held beauty and youth,
Raged fists of anger and broken tooth,

Planted seeds barehanded in soil to grow,
Worked stone to find what sculptors know,

Been numbed by the cold of a winter’s snow,
Felt the sharp ache of a hammer’s blow,

In need have waved and thumbed a ride,
Firmly held over heart and saluted with pride.

Wiped tears from cheeks when my children cried,
Held my father’s head when he died.

Grasped after love and caught its pain,
Caught water from a summer’s rain,

Raised above my head at night in prayer,
These hands well- used are almost there.

MIDNIGHT SKY

Horizon to horizon
Across the expansive night
Sitting on a granite boulder
Washed in stardust light
Dreaming in eternal beacons
As they pass on by
Knowing that I’m riding with them
In this midnight sky.

CUMULUS

Dancing on cumulus

High in the blue,

Searching for vantage points

Looking for you.

Profound are the patterns

That you have made free,

For eyes that are open,

For minds that can see.

Incline me to dreaming

Of cumulus sky

And feed my horizons

Until I must die.

Then I will be dancing

And sailing with you,
To all the great vantage points

Focused and true.

DREAMING ME

What is that?

Resting on the right side

Of that gray jungle

That is my being.

The outer reaches of my window

Through which I see

His endless creation.


Is it a memory?

Teasing my imagination

In slumber,

Dreaming me,


Back to when


I was only love

In the hands of my creator?

DIAMOND BUTTERFLIES

She wore sandals with diamond butterflies,
That flew from her sensual feet,

Hovering just over her painted toenails,
,
That kissed at the air,

And made me stare,
As she moved past,

Leaving the air filled with the delicate scent

Of a meadow awake with spring.

SILHOUETTE

Just beyond my hope,
Reaching for a silhouette in a dream,
Outlined in warmth unable to be felt,
Filled with a spirit unable to be held,
A halo of a celestial being in prayer,
Not of my limited dimension.
Waking, I struggled to hold
That apparition that faded quickly,
Effacing its essence,
As I became a silhouette,
Empty, searching after her touch.

UNOPENED GIFTS

Life flickers through the vapors of our dreams,
Fooled we think we are solid,
As we slip between the spaces of life’s seams.

Haunting shadows fitfully flaming bright then dim,
Fleeting light we cannot own,
Only wax and wick burning human foolishness and whim.

Words held glib outstretched to touch the wild sky,
To let relentless stabbing winds,
Blow out their spirit in wispy cooling smoke to die.

Are we hopeless moths flying from an ink black lie?
To dance and flutter, mindless, drawn,
Around a flame soon burnt, consumed, without a reason why.

Or are we unopened gifts held out and given free,
By unfathomable love for his beloved,
Our candle spirits illuminating wrappings soon opened for us to see.

RAINDROPS

This tear is lost in raindrops

And falls through thundering storm,

To drown its loss in ocean,

Where pain from memory is torn.


Its sadness drifts in cresting brine,

Where wind does mist the wave,

To skyward cloud again to fly,

In peace to leave its grave.

MOMENTS IN TIME

We live these moments in time

As though they would last forever,

But, in fact, they are only memories soon forgotten.

Awkwardly we hold onto confusion

Like primitives dancing around a man made idol

Swaying this way then that,

Breathing in the smoke of our hallucinations

While just over consciousness,

GOD waits patiently for us to open our eyes.

Raven Prince

There was a beginning and an end,

And woven somewhere far within,

A raven prince of tree and sky,

And everything that was up high

Was soaring through the air with ease,

Nearly touching clouds then trees,

Spinning, diving, tumbling through,

With friends he sailed the sky of blue.

HOPE

Hope, you are an esoteric question why,

A gossamer ship, to light to lift,

My heart beats to places for the soul,

Without delusion, to float somewhere above

That radiant sky.

CLOUDS OF CASTLES

I HAVE GONE TO

CLOUDS OF CASTLES,

WATCHED DOVES REJOICE IN FLIGHT,

HEARD BREEZES WHISPER

PLEASURE

AND RIVERS ROAR

DELIGHT,

FELT SOLITUDE

EXPLODE IN PRISMS OF UNDISCOVERD LIGHT.

WITHOUT LOVE

WITHOUT LOVE

Passion would be a frozen winter’s stream,
A cold desire burning fire only in a dream.

Desire would sink below an exotic sea,
Far from lovers, to touch and make it be.

Lovers would face the winds of time and die,
If without horizons to fill their lives with sky.

And sky would be an empty place indeed,
If love failed to fly and with its beauty lead.

Sculptor

When in a state of meditation free,

A sculptor sees more than a tree.

And when he touches a marble shard,

His soul cries out with true regard.

But when he begins his work to shape,

Both doubt and insight with him he’ll take.

Then halfway down the creative lane,

The master creator will take the reins

And guide the sculptor to the form,

Where beauty and pleasure in him is born.

When done he’ll stand in awe and stare

And marvel at GOD who got him there.

Stones

STONES
Each stone upon a larger stone
All balanced towards the sky,
Each stone upon a larger stone
Along the path they lie.

Each stone upon a larger stone,
In rain in sun through time,
Each stone upon a larger stone
A pathway through the rhyme.

Enigmatic Vessels

Enigmatic Vessels

We are all enigmatic vessels,
Filling and emptying,
The essence of our souls,
Some of fragrant oil,
Some of complex fermented harvest,
Some of dank murkiness and confusion,
Some drunk on their own liquid,
All pouring and filling,
All battling emptiness,
Deep down wanting
The one that wrought them,
To stem the bleeding
And make them whole.