Jay Bates Poems

The call came in while we were out marking timber
Fire on the mountain, near Wolf Creek. A night to remember

We loaded in the Jeep with pulaskis and shovels
Not a minute to spare, we sped on like avenging angels
...

I fairly flew down the lightly traveled road, through the mist and scattered rain, among the resident literary ghosts imagined, going down Big Sur.

Visions of Jeffers, Kerouac, and Miller swirled; over the Bixby Bridge, beneath the forever circling giant condors; an interlude at Pitkins Curve Bridge and the massive construction of Rain Rocks rock shed.
...

It was a tractor of simplicity itself.
A magneto, gravity flow fuel and a crank
Mostly used as a cultivator
...