Deanna dickinson mccall's Blog (37)

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Mustang Spring

Hi, everyone. I've missed you all, every single one of you. This isn't a six, warning....Just wanted to let you know I've been busy writing, editing, and seeing my book come out. MUSTANG SPRING: Stories & Poems. Dreams can come true. I'll be back when things calm down.

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on November 15, 2012 at 8:22pm — 4 Comments

Morning Carnage

I woke to gun shots, shots from a large gun and far too many shots, all sounding from about 10 feet from the bed where my husband and I nest every evening.  I rolled out of the now empty nest to find out what the hell he was shooting at while the sky was still in shades of pink and I was looking forward to the cool breeze floating through the lace curtains to caress us while we had a rare chance to sleep beyond 5:30.  “Fuckers”, he said aiming down the barrel to where my eyes followed to the…

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Added by deanna dickinson mccall on June 27, 2012 at 8:05pm — 7 Comments

SAVING GRACE

Rivulets run down horses

Manure scents the air

Awe of nature’s forces

Answer to his prayer.



Lightning splits the inky sky

Horses wheel, ears laid flat

Trembling, tear thundering by

Masses of muscle and fat.



Ring of raging rain

Pings and puddles off tin roof

Squeal of spinning weather vane

All proclaim the pounding proof.



Cattle scatter from feed grounds

Gather beneath dripping trees

Dream of green redeeming…

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Added by deanna dickinson mccall on August 8, 2011 at 10:29pm — 4 Comments

Hollyhocks

Some are fragile, shell-like palest pink, some have the hue of an apricot, others are the deepest, richest ,shade of blood red. There are pure whites resembling camellias, country-sunny yellows and every season, every year they change and become unique in their colors and layers of ruffles.



I started them from… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on August 4, 2011 at 10:00pm — No Comments

FEEDING IN JULY?

Sweat is dripping off my dirty neck, my bra is full of oat hay, which beats it being full of alfalfa, just take my word for it. My nails are ragged and divoted from loading sacks and throwing cake pellets to the scattered cows that come to my call as I drive along with a 50 lb sack across my lap, my son steering when necessary. We have been feeding cows, in heat and humidity caused by a coal black sky full of promises where slurry planes are flying to a fire beyond our view.

I am delighted… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on July 22, 2011 at 4:00pm — 3 Comments

A slip of the tongue

His eyes often shone with the depth of his love, deep, dark and misty while he flirted. It was a young love, filled with moments of stolen passion and quiet adoration. He would try so hard to impress me; it is now almost comical in retrospect. We sometimes sneaked away from my family to enjoy the blush of a sunset from a quiet, private place. I smile in fond remembrance of those innocent days. I think we were alone, cuddled on the couch the first time it happened, I asked for a kiss, finally.… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on July 21, 2011 at 11:30am — 8 Comments

THE WRECK part 2

We have made it down to the road, near where I was told the horse would be tied to a tree, injured, but they would take care of her, and my husband would be lying nearby. The sweat is stinging, blurring my eyes and it takes a few minutes to see them, the horse standing in heavy brush, cloaked in blood, and my husband sprawled on his back with a canteen near him. He finally raises his head and tries to smile, the blue eyes not quite focused, asking about the horse, ordering me to strip the… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on June 30, 2011 at 6:45pm — 2 Comments

THE WRECK part 1

My son and I are winding through the serpentine canyon, over boulders, through brush that slaps our faces as we lead cattle in his new 4-wheel drive ATV while my husband and other riders are pushing from behind. We round another corner to have one of the drag riders slide down an embankment and hold his hand up, frowning, a man usually very quiet, very calm and whom I never seen frown, now yelling “whoa!” at me.

He rides closer, staring into my eyes, calmly stating my husband has had a bad… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on June 30, 2011 at 6:41pm — 1 Comment

Overwhelmed

I should not be sitting here at the computer this morning when the list of chores goes on and on and I will work until bedtime, as I do most days. But, it is one of the days that is overwhelming, the worries about my son’s upcoming brain MRI, another request from the courts for documentation in a lawsuit against us that should never be allowed to be heard, cattle needing care in the worst drought recorded for our area, and the mundane, exhausting maneuvering of getting through another… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on June 3, 2011 at 10:42am — 6 Comments

Social Page Reunion

I view the photos of oil paintings rich in depth, watercolors and pastels as soft as the California mists we grew up in. Another page reveals details of chips of antique china, vintage crystal and junks store beads married like old lovers forming jewelry pieces. The third site shows a beautiful home thoughtfully made from recycled materials, the patinas of treasured wood and stone glowing and politically correct. I will look at one more, only one more, I promise myself as I click the mouse on… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on June 1, 2011 at 9:41am — 3 Comments

New Boots

Bill pushed the sweat stained hat back off his head exposing the white band of skin that rarely saw sun, leaned back on the barstool and ordered the beer he’d been dreaming about for the last ten miles into town. He reached for his wallet, knowing there wasn’t much in there, but knowing they’d run a tab for him, he relaxed and looked around to see which of his cronies had beat him there. Another cowboy-hatted figure darkened the door and Bill motioned him over while ordering him a beer before… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on May 21, 2011 at 11:03pm — 1 Comment

A Mother's Ritual

Today I will don my big brimmed, rolled palm leaf hat to shade the creases the sun has spent half a century forming on my face. I will place a boot far too familiar with a shovel and dig and turn and turn again, bringing worms and grubs to the bright light of a May morning. My work-thickened fingers will bury themselves in soil enriched with manure, juniper duff, and wood ashes, dark and rich, smelling of musty earthiness. Thin stemmed, and delicate adolescent tomatoes, peppers, beans and… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on May 5, 2011 at 7:00pm — 3 Comments

New Love

The early morning summer sun is a caress to her bare, browned, and beautifully sculpted shoulders exposed above the southwestern print sheet she has wrapped around her naked body. Her head is thrown back, exposing the neck he trailed kisses on tenderly until the flames rose in them both and the nipping and biting and chewing began.

At almost 40 years of age, she had found someone to share her wild soul and her bed, someone who had to leave her side before the dawn exposed their love to the… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on April 26, 2011 at 9:30pm — 6 Comments

Drought Morning

The coffee is hot and dark, and I have added chocolate for indulgence as I wait for the first glint of the sun to strike rock as it climbs over the rim. This canyon where the ranch house lays is deep, and mornings come late while twilight arrives early, gifting me with shadows and auras of many dimensions.



It is another day of drought and I pray the wind fails to rise with the sun as has become its custom. The air is clean this morning, though I still smell the slight tang of…

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Added by deanna dickinson mccall on April 15, 2011 at 11:30am — 4 Comments

Another Birth

The pressure is incredible on my bare arm, as it always is when you’re elbow deep in a cow’s birth canal trying to find a nose, a leg, and why nothing has appeared despite her labors.

We watched her through binoculars, getting up and down repeatedly before we intervened, all that work and nothing showing but her swollen vulva, slick with mucus and caked with manure and dirt while she moaned.

I find the bent leg that prevents the calf from entering the world and manage to straighten it… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on March 13, 2011 at 10:49pm — 3 Comments

I KNEW

I am four years old and waken, and know somehow, something is very wrong and I know to tiptoe to my second oldest sister’s room, the sister who teaches Sunday school in 2 churches, sings like a bird at 16 and dreams of being a nurse and peer in to see the still made bed, and know that is bad. I walk on silent, bare tiptoes to the cold living room, where my family and some neighbors have unnaturally gathered and I feel the horror, see the tear streaked faces of my… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on March 6, 2011 at 9:53pm — 7 Comments

Becky

I am peering over the counter, chubby three year old hands gripping the edge of the Formica in quiet awe of the fork mashing the golden brown balls of dough, the smell of peanut butter and my oldest sister singing “Mammy’s gonna make you shortenin bread” with a twinkle in her pretty blue eyes. I watch her petite, deft hands hook a smidgen of the dough and offer it to me; the smile and quick squeeze I receive more delicious than the tidbit I let melt in my mouth.



Every afternoon…

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Added by deanna dickinson mccall on March 5, 2011 at 9:42pm — 7 Comments

Drowning

It is so much work, the façade of pretending my efforts will change a damn thing. The feeling of drowning comes, and I am at the exhaustive point I just want to let go, close my eyes and sink to the bottom where peace awaits. The very thought releases some anxiety, and with that thought I manage a mental, wry grin. It is not in me to give up, no matter how shattered, how betrayed and hopeless I feel it is impossible to give up. The surge is beginning, slowly making its presence known, that will… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on February 5, 2011 at 11:27am — 3 Comments

The Way I Want It

I am standing at the window, arms wrapped tightly across the chest that is where the root of the poison, the toxicity is hidden. Hidden and finally brought into the light, exposed in the dull films though I knew down deep, as deep in me as it lay, that it was there. The doctors want to operate, to cut into me and remove the thing that is part of me now, that is nesting in the tissue and feeling the whisper of each breath slowly claiming more space in my lung.

The view out the window is one… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on January 28, 2011 at 11:30am — 8 Comments

Only the Government

I am writing this when I really, really need to be writing traditional, rhyming poetry that speaks of our cowboy culture since I have 2 shows next month, 2 states apart. But, this being the end of the year for the government agencies, reports filed by the ranchers leasing and using these lands are due at our annual meeting next week.



We are the government’s eyes since all their range cons (conservationists) and other personnel are now office bound with all the paper work the government… Continue

Added by deanna dickinson mccall on January 3, 2011 at 9:00pm — 1 Comment

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