Category: New Mexico

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2021 Albuquerque American Place New Mexico Poems

End of Summer

End of Summer

A walk in the foothills
At the end of summer
Still very warm with
A hint of coolness in the breeze
Roasting a landscape full of seed
Getting ready for winter winds
To scatter the next generation
Of thistle and sage across the plain
Cottonballs full of flight-ready potential

Starburst purple Asters and little
Fucsia-colored clusters line the dry dirt and sand
While hundreds of pale blue Dragon Flies
Do helicopter fly-bys filling
The air with their hyper activity
Butterflies big and small match
The colors of the coming fall
And set my mind free
To fly with them on the breeze.

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2021 American Place New Mexico Poems

By The Lake

As I sit here by my fire
And the morning turns to day
The fish we caught
Is made a meal
But we no longer can stay
For time is short
Out in the woods
As time is short
Out in this world
These simple things
That we enjoy
Don’t last too long
Once they’ve unfurled
Yet these moments make
Great treasure
And some may get written down
Yes, out here we take real pleasure
In the scene, the set, the sounds
But, out here there are no actors
Only characters pure and true
To this theater we take for granted in
These places where they do what they will do.

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2021 American Place New Mexico Poems

Ripples Through Time

Ripples In Time

I sit in my canoe
Thinking of you
My Mentor
My teacher
A man drifting in calm
Waters of the present
Looking across the ripples
Of the past.
You taught me the blessings
Of Smoke
Steaming Cedar branches
And Sweat
You taught me how to return
To our Mother
Hold her sacred
Center
and
Still
Oneself as the
Ghosts of the Buffalo
Silently graze on by
As shimmering ancestors
Follow
Singing their stories
To you
Creating a new narrative
That will ripple
Out into the Future–
For nothing created
Is ever truly destroyed.

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2021 American Place Bird Song New Mexico Poems Road Less Travelled

Last Hoorah

One last hoorah
Before The Spirit of Summer
Succumbs to the seriousness
Of Education and Work
That signals the American
Tradition of Fall
That seems to come earlier
And earlier each year
As administrative minds
Decide for the masses
That the excess of
Time and energy is the
Corruption of Mind and Learning —
So into the woods we’ve run
With cedar and river
And Freedom and Fun
To learn the bird’s songs
One last time and throw
Our poles to lure one last
Meal from the waters
The lessons of the wild
Provide the mild mind
With relaxation and realization
That a simpler life may be
Required to grasp the enlightenment
That a generation sought there
Generations back as they fought
To find what lacked in their daily life.

Categories
2021 American Place Colorado New Mexico Poems Utah

Last Day, Last

It’s the last day
Of our family outing
Alone I sit with
Dog and pen
To re-collect this
time spent passing
With my loved ones
Out in the open
Breathing the air
Of the American West
Full of trees
And smoke and dust
Hot air, cool air
Dry air, wet air
We’ve made so many stops
I can no longer compare.
I’m bone-tired from
100 Miles walked
So many things we’ve seen
So many times we’ve talked
All such inspiring scenes
No aspirations mocked
To find this life serene
On happiness we’ve stocked
The bare cupboards
Of our souls
And fill our empty holes
With moments where we lived
So that we’d have more to give
Each other and our world
Full of memories we clutch like pearls.

Categories
2021 American Place New Mexico Poems

Afternoon Rain

Two Rainbows crested
O’er the emerald hills beyond
A pot of gold it rested
A short time behind the pond
And as we then persisted
To get to the other side
All the colors they resisted
Faded to oblivion

For if it’s gold you’re after
Take a moment to reflect
The treasure’s in the Rainbow
And your fortune you neglect
By not breathing in this moment
Being present as you inspect

The myth that drives your desire
Yes, your narrative will unravel
As you chase on to acquire
This prize out on the gravel
If you stand to be inspired
By the distance that you travel

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2021 American Place Bird Song New Mexico Poems

The chase is on

The Blackbirds chase the Raven
Three or four at a time
They push him away
From their demesne.
Keep their eggs safe and sound
“Chuck, chuck, chip, chip”
These Blackbirds sing
“That charred crow is back
For our nest he is looking
Away, Away, Away” we follow him
up into the sky
“Go back, Go back
From Where you came
And stay away, stay away from my
Brood in the bushes
No breakfast for your kind
Belie your wishes
Away, Away!
Away sly raven
To some other nest
you fly with abandon!”

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2021 American Place Bird Song New Mexico Poems

Eagle’s Nest

Eagle's Nest

Grackles and Crows
Cackle and call
Filling the morning with their chatter
Does it matter that I’m here?
Not to them, they do not care
About the comings and going of this
Self-absorbed
Man

They don’t plan
Except for their next
meal
Or where to nest
for their love
appeal

And when the crows
Do interfere
These Grackles
Chase them out of here
Then go back to minding
Not a thing
About me
Who listens most intently
To the songs
And calls
Of all things
Small

From the prairie dogs bark
To the red-winged black bird
And the horned lark

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2021 American Place Ars Poetica Footnotes New Mexico Poems

What Am I Missing?

If I stop and take
A minute to write
Or a photograph
How much Life
Am I missing?

If a notational ear
Or observant eye
Can pull from the landscape
Into Memory than my
Experience my be more enlightening…

What is your approach?
Coleridge’s observational reproach?
Or Wordsworth’s walking as he wrote?
Which will glean and which will gloss?
Who will find meaning? What will be lost?

I find myself quite often
At a loss for themes, my memory softened
If I take too long from my observations
The meter fades and the propositions
Wash away and become forgotten.

Yet if in the moment I focus too much
On this art I offer and the places I touch
Do I leave too little of this world explored?
And proffer false narratives for you to adore?
Not the depths of this moment I’m here to explore…

Categories
2021 American Place New Mexico Poems

UFO

Terrifying
Is the first sensation that
creeps up my spine as the
long trail of stars creeps
across the just blackened night
Sky of dusk out in the desert

The stream of lights arched from
Horizon to Horizon – a steady
pace of objects un-evenly spaced
giving it the illusion of a
Naturally occurring phenomenon

Without internet out in the dark
Night sky of our camping spot
We could neither deny nor
Confirm the spectacle we had witnessed
By referring to the digital brain

We could only speculate the
Nature of these UFOs with
Our New Mexican mythology
Some 160 miles north of
Roswell in the darkness at Villanueva