Sunday, December 26, 2010

Crowligraphy

On phone lines crows feel words
flowing beneath their feet.
Walking on mud or new snow,
they translate gossip, joy, anger, grief
into a language of lines,
marks I can't decipher.

From high perches
they speak their raucous words,
laugh at me
when I try to answer...

Crows scratch their calligraphy
in snow or soft earth,
not caring what I say,
not caring what I want,
not caring what I know.

            © Jean Sampson, 2010


Monday, December 20, 2010

Homeland

Of dusty roads,
tumbleweeds,
and horny toads. 
Here my heart 
was given birth,
in an adobe
nestled in cottonwood
on the Rio Grande. 
This river I know
runs swiftly,
and leaves intricate
mud-red designs
in a bed of sand.
To the east, 
purple mountains,
sage, piñon, and pine.
To the west,
boulders in formation,
mesas.
The sky all around.
Here my heart was 
enchanted, 
claimed by this Indian land. 
Cactus and lizard. 
Yucca blooming in the sun. 
Blue tail disappearing under brush. 
Roadrunner and rattlesnake-- 
lightning flash of brown bird,
coiled viper on dry cracked earth.
Summer thundershowers
booming to life 
after a parched, sun-baked day.
Here my heart lives 
and awaits 
the cool evening that comes
after brilliant
orange-red golden glow 
passing of the sun.
I know of the red rock 
clay of the Jemez
and of canyons untraversed. 
Here my heart sings. 
Turquoise and coral 
mingle with silver. 
I smell fried bread 
and the sulphur of 
Soda Dam.
Tall white aspen 
dressed in gold 
stand against 
a background brilliant 
blue 
and clear; cloudless.
New Mexico, 
land of mañana. 
Take it slow, amigo. 
Have a tortilla.
Listen to the 
mariachi band.
Come to the cultures.
Dance and 
celebrate 
God’s fullness!

         © Anne Cressin, 2010

The Soda Dam on Jemez Creek near Jemez Springs, NM. ~ Wikimedia Commons; 
photo by snowpeak

Monday, December 13, 2010

Where True Beauty Lives

This World seems so Big 
As We Live in It,
As We Give Ourselves so Freely to Our Own Pain.
Such a Shame It is,
How Hard to Give Up What We Know So Well,
With No One to Blame 
And Nothing Left to Claim
But Ourselves.
The Truth of What Is and What has Been Done
And What is Still to Come, 
Can Only be Understood in Retrospect.
In Finding the Beauty of Respecting What has Come Before Us, 
And What is Right in Front of Us.
Don’t Try Too Hard to Figure Out Your Life.
Just Live it and Give Your Heart 
To All that You Love and Believe.
Because that is Where Truth Is, 
That is Where True Beauty Lives.
That is Where Divine Light Evolves
And Dissolves any Pain or Anger
That is Still Hiding in the Dark Corners of Your Mind.
© Flora Lark Baily, 2010


Winter evening at the edge of the forest; photo by Tony Russell