Up Over Our Shoulders The Mesa

We are in Corrales.
Village where my grandma
lived her best last years
for us as little girls.

Close to sunset,
late summer
sun streaming through tree trunks
light dancing through so many green leaves,
long shadows next to golden greenrows of sun on grass on alfalfa.
Tall lushness blocks
glare of the sun on
valley floor.

We know by going back over the tiny ditch
with Grandma carrying the matches and bag of trash
to the blackened burn can
that there’s a dirt hill above
and then a hundred miles beyond
that sun is setting over
homes of meadowlark in juniper
bluetail lizard in sandstone sandy dirt
and yucca, purple sage.
The sun sets over wilderness.
And we know it’s up there, beyond
this lush valley.
Over our shoulder
up over the mesa
we don’t see but a few houses.
And then know it’s wild.

That our home in the valley is bordered by this other place
brings a settled yawn,
a quick jump in our galloping.

Music from guitars and voices singing
laughter and lights glowing
late in the black night
through wooden gates over mud walls
out the low window of my grandma’s one-bedroom.

The plowed and planted field,
the stacked wood,
the path to the burn barrel,
the conservancy district ditch,
and steeples of the old church over yonder —
Humanity done good in this valley.
But it’s the connection above —
up over that horizon
to the wild land of the mesa
territory to the west
land belonging to the mostly much smaller
beings stink bug rattler cottontail
jack rabbit tarantula stones and rocks
smoothed from rains in ravines arroyos
sage brush rabbitbrush 4wing salt bush
chamiza —
But it’s the connection above —
brings a settled yawn,
a quick jump in our galloping.

8-16-96