canyon country

An “Italian” Evening–One

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Two weeks and one day ago, Martina arrived from Milano, Italy, to live with me until the end of the school year.  We have discovered astonishing similarities:  we both sing and play the piano, we love vegetables and fish, we read books.  Tonight my grandson and daughter are coming over for Italian food.  We went grocery shopping today, bought pancetta for pasta alla carbonara.  Because my grandson is vegetarian, we purchased Morning Star “bacon” and will make a separate vegetarian version for him.

As we planned this repast, I learned that in Italy everyone eats several courses unless in a very big hurry.  Course one includes various little goodies like cheeses, nuts, salami, often thought of in the US as antipasto, but it can include many other things.  Each person obtains a drink of his or her choice and snacks on the goodies and converses.  There are separate courses that follow:  pasta, meat or fish, salad, and finally dessert.  Italians eat dinner late, e.g. 9-9:30, which reminded me of Argentina where people also eat late.  I like to eat late unlike many people in the US.  However, we won’t eat that late tonight, more like perhaps 7:30 or whenever we get everything done.

Right now as we await the arrival of my family, Martina and I are sipping tea while she works on a dystopian short story she has to write for English class–she is a senior here–and I write this blog post.  The snow from last evening has mostly melted and the sun is setting.  Martina loves Panhandle of Texas sunsets and sunrises.  I will take photos of the food and post them tomorrow.

 

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Athena

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Most of my posts are poems, things I have learned, travel adventures, or serious comments about the world. This one is more of a personal sharing post.  Here are three photos of my dog, Athena.  She is a standard poodle and quite fearless and territorial.  She will even stand off coyotes.  Sometimes this makes me sad because I do enjoy the wide variety of wildlife where I live.  However, I like the idea that she is fearless and protective and warns me about anything unusual.  Nothing escapes her notice.

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When I took this, she had just demolished a bone and fragments appear on her left leg.

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She and my grandson playing.

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Inspecting her territory in her short summer haircut taken last summer.

I just finished the book “American Wolf”.  Most people do not associate their dogs with big predators. Poodles were originally bred to hunt.  When I watch her roam the wild around my house, hunter, predator comes to mind.  I have watched her chase foxes, coyotes, skunks, you name it.  She is clever enough to never get too close to the skunk.  The coyote and she had a stand off. Eventually, Athena won.  I have not seen a coyote since and that was months ago.

 

Cutting Yucca

/ Juliana Lightle / 1 Comment

Yucca will take over if you let it.

 

Every summer after the blooms dry, I tackle them with long,

red-handled clippers and cut off  long stalks.

Not bothering to put on boots, I set out in black and grey Chacos,

cutting stalks in places unreachable by tractor.

 

I climb down to a rough area, open these long, red-handled clippers,

chop off the dead blossoms, then look down.

She lies there, her body slightly bigger than the size of my upper arm,

fat, not long.

A snake stretched out, only 1/8 inch from the front of my Chacos.

 

I look again.  Crap.  She’s a rattlesnake, one of those short,

stout prairie rattlers, perfectly blending with the grey and brown

rocks and soil.

 

Slowly, I inch backward, taking care not to fall on the steep slope.

When several feet away, I run to the barn, grab two shovels off their hooks,

run back.  She’s gone.  I search everywhere around.

 

I never find her.

 

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Plains Indian Artifacts–Beaded Moccasins

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Last evening I attended a new exhibit at Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum.  The exhibit featured moccasins, paintings, and various artifacts made by different Great Plains tribes, including a headdress worn by Quanah Parker.  The exhibit also contains many old photographs.  A number of Comanches were present including a lady over 100 years old.

After I left the exhibit, I kept thinking about it and wondered how current Comanches might feel when they come to something like this which in many ways honors them but also displays a past that will never return.  While contemplating, I wrote this poem about what I saw.

Beaded moccasins,

moons of work.

Ceremonial beauty,

now encased in glass, labelled, dated by someone’s guess,

for strangers who believe in a strange god,

desecrate the land,

waste invaluable water,

kill bears for sport.

Weep

Wait

 

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Palo Duro Canyon, Comanche Country, where they made their last stand and were forced to go to a reservation in Oklahoma after federal troops killed over a thousand of their horses.

 

 

 

Iris Tough

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

In spite of less than 3/4 inch rain since last fall and minimal watering from the 400 foot deep well, iris bloom everywhere–even in unamended caliche, a glorious reminder of nature’s resilience.

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When I thinned these a couple of years ago, I had so many that I stuck them everywhere, even here at the end of the driveway.  I have watered them only once.

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A friend gave me just one.  I planted it by the barn among others of the color in the first photo.  In spite of the drought they multiplied a lot this past year.  Probably all the rain from last summer helped before it quit raining.

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I planted these a couple of years ago in front of the barn.  I watered them a few times this spring but none during the winter.  This particular iris reblooms in the fall and multiplies so fast it is difficult to keep up with separating it.

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Possibly because of their location by the retaining wall near the barn facing west, these are always the first to bloom.  I did water them a couple of times this spring. Insects have found them.

 

Day 127

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Tan grass stretches miles and miles as far as eyes can see.

The water in the indigo bird bath evaporates in one day.

Playa lakes, full last summer, surrounded then in emerald grass, lay waterless.

Thirty-five miles an hour winds create fog-like clouds of dust across the horizon.

Grit, wind hurled, buffets cars and trucks driving down the long, straight highways.

Dust-fed sunrises and sunsets clad skies in orange, hot pink, vermillion, violet, mauve.

Day 127 with no measurable precipitation.

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Note:  I wrote this ten days ago.  That evening it rained .01 inches.  None since then.  We are approaching four months with just that .01 inches, nothing more.  Every time it warms and the winds come, the weather forecast mentions high fire danger.  All counties and state parks near here have burn bans.  March is a windy month.

Sunday Poem-Puma I

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

“An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.”  Martin Buber

 

My neighbor walked out her door

found a puma lying on the lawn.

Puma rose, stretched, disappeared.

 

At night when I open my gate

I wonder if she lurks

behind the cedar trees,

pounce ready.

 

My daughter dreams puma dreams:

a puma chases her up a tree.

There are no trees here big enough to climb.

 

A Zuni puma fetish guards my sleep.

I run with puma

Night wild

Free.

 

I scream and howl

Moonstruck

Bloodborn.

 

I hike the canyon

stroll around my house

look for puma tracks.

I see none.

 

I would rather die by puma

than in a car wreck.

 

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Note:  This is the first in a series of Puma Poems in my book “On the Rim of Wonder”.