Coyote Gulch published one of Justice Hobbs’ poems on Saturday. It’s the perfect time for the poem as we’re reading Hobbs’ Living the Four Corners for the Water 2012 Book Club, thanks Coyote Gulch! Take a look:
It’s been a while since I’ve published one of Justice Hobbs’ poems. Here’s his poem, Organic Garlic Offering, from the current Colorado Water 2012 Book Club selection, Living the Four Corners: Colorado Centennial State at the Headwaters. Hobbs is inspired by his son Dan who farms organic garlic below a ditch in the Arkansas Valley.
Organic Garlic Offering
Pick a spot of Colorado
sun below the ditchOctober morning
plant them firm,To root your hopes
set them looseBut turn
some water inJuly’s the harvesting,
Purple Glazer, Silver WhiteMusic Pink, Romanian Red,
Chesnok Inchelium, California Early,Heirloom pungent, easy peel
good for salsa, pestosEating fresh and clean
saving this good farmlandReprinted, with permission, from Living the Four Corners: Colorado Centennial State at the Headwaters by Justice Greg Hobbs. Click here to order the book from Continuing Legal Education Inc.
Here’s the link to Tom Romero’s review of the book. From the review:
The four great rivers of the American West (the Colorado, the Platte, the Arkansas, and the Rio Grande)—whose headwaters sit high in the peaks of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains—are threatened with silence. Because of industrial mining and large-scale irrigation, energy development, rapid large-scale urban growth, and climate change, these venerable rivers seemingly are taxed beyond their sustainable limits. Their vulnerability threatens the livelihoods of millions of people who have long relied on these rivers. Once majestic and unpredictable bodies of water, the headwaters of the Centennial State have become tightly controlled, over-managed cisterns on which every single drop is drained.
Nevertheless, as Justice Greg Hobbs reminds us in Living the Four Corners, these rivers continue to inspire awe and wonder, perhaps because of our deep-rooted reliance on the river systems for our economy, politics, and culture—or perhaps because we simultaneously recognize and take for granted each river’s persistence and durability.
Justice Hobbs has a new book just out, Into the Grand. Click here to order a copy. From Hobbs’ authors note:
I am led southwesterly by the best of guides. They include Kristin Kuckelman of Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, Rickey Hayes of the Ute Mountain Tribe, Michael Welsh of the University of Northern Colorado, Ken and Ruth Wright of the Wright Paleohydrological Institute, and Kate Thompson, who I met on the river when I was fishing with brother Will. Kate’s stunning cover photograph of lower Glen Canyon bending to Marble Canyon calls on all that’s Grand. To our journeying grandchildren, Joni, K.J., Shannon, Ella, Quinn and Grace, may you enjoy the glow of your very many glimmerings.
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