New Mexico

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

I wanted to gather you
up in my arms,
like a mother
gathers her young,
and bring you back
to New Mexico—
a place you once loved.

I wanted to take
you away
from the suffocating people
in that room
so I could listen,
alone,
to your ragged
breathing.

A gift
in the night.

Two Watchers

a photograph by Sonja Bingen

Between Gallup, New Mexico and Continental Divide is a place known as Red Rocks Park. Here red sandstone rises into blue skies spring, summer, winter, and fall, looking out at the land with the almost-not-moving patience of cliffs and earth.

Sonnet 42

by Thomas Davis

Back in New Mexico the monsoon rains
had turned the desert green. Massed sunflowers blazed
with purple bee balm in the fields, the stain
of colors so intense there was a praise
of living in the vibrancy exploding
across a landscape barren, dry, the earth
so sterile that the thought of burgeoning
into a garden seemed a cause for mirth.
We walked in beauty like the Navajo
and thought about our son and how his eyes
would never look again into the glow
of fields of flowers, see the flight of butterflies.

The moment that that thought occurred to me,
I stopped. How can this be reality?

Note: This was written just days after our son’s death in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Red Rock Cliffs

a photograph by Sonja Bingen, our daughter

Note: Ethel and I live in a beautiful place. Red rock cliffs can be seen from our house and are spectacular, looking down from the Zuni Mountains while walking the road to isolated ranches Ethel walks most days. Sonja and William visited us during Spring break two years ago now, and this is one of the photographs of the red rock cliffs she took.

Tag Archives: New Mexico

The Red Mesas of Continental Divide

Storm Clouds Over the High Desert

In the Night

Two Watchers

Sonnet 42

Branches and Sky, a Song

Tree Growing Out of Rock

Blue Gramma

Red Rock Cliffs

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