The Santa Fe Trail 10.08.06 

LA VILLA REAL DE SANTA FE DE SAN FRANCISCO DE ASIS

after the prairie where the coyotes howl, and buffalo spirits rove. the moon rains on us.  fire bound demons lapping at the dogs dish. wild mountains dancing in the white storm. raton, new mexico, main street death by fast food. mysteries in the heights of the earth. wind never stops raking the hills. mud, earth, people within, cement floors, the dark air, night cool, dark hair white skinned youth ranging in the early years from love to money. soul somewhere to be found.  bobby leaves, soul maestro, twenty years, the altitude, the spanish iron, the constraint.  not forgetting the crosses, everywhere the crosses. and blinding sun whirlling around in the sky lifts me by the eyes, the nerves, the german, tall strong, young against the white wash of the country church.  my eyes melt, the world one skin against the clay waterless air. the biting rio grande that waits in the jagged crack of earth, a deep dark cavern of tumultous and rebirthing agua.  face to the high sun. an icon near the iron hindge and the shadow and Lawrence’s naked people in the taos hotel.  earth and the church reclaim the land.  jesus is a brown woman making tortillas and dancing like a dear on new years’s day.  the old guy shot in the army knows the streets. the woman serves us without teeth, happy.  a green river flows from nowhere beneath the stone crosses.  stations of the suffering, beads and trinkets; how i stood before them when new in ceremony somewhere in the west.  now the graves scattered in the weeds, old cars that never die, walls reclaimed by the earth.  the beating sun. saints and sinners, bread ovens, dust, light, horses, mechanics smelling of fuel. bright asian from texas.  the dream floats in tile on tusuque offramp. the bronze melts into the blonde hair of berlin. trees clap.  leaves turn yellow. ranges stack up to infinity.  the temple is dark accept for one flower from the skylight, and the rain cisterns give water.  the stuppa, an afternoon meal. the old doors with peppers.  crisp engenue taking tea on canyon road. indios, jewelry.  she, the zuni/navajo from acoma, unge, takes me into her dark hair and fare skin, to the pottery, nempeyo's, blackened, white, sand, sienna.  the old designs from the earth, rubbed with stones, baked in the pit.