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Albuquerque, New Mexico to Santa Fe on the Turquoise Trail. Tan to orange to red colored dirt. A cloudless sky and increasing heat. Pinyon pines, short bush-like trees, give little shade.
Many stops along the way to take photos. I am short of breath because of the altitude and can’t walk far.
shifting landmarks
tumbleweed and sagebrush
caught by the wind
Lunch in Madrid, (emphasis on the first syllable). Once a coal mining town, now an artists’ community where painters, sculptors, potters, jewelers, and weavers sell their works.
turquoise
the jeweled color
of a desert sky
In Santa Fe, a small adobe house, a casita, is home for the week. Comfortable and tastefully furnished with antiques and replicas. We eat the local food and drink Margueritas.
Happy Hour—
a shaded lounge chair
and a cooling breeze
Everywhere are adobe buildings in the pueblo style, from light beige to reddish brown, from down in the Plaza to up in the hills.
a private garden
behind adobe walls
what the birds see
a blue door
in an adobe wall
desert sky and sand
An hour away is Taos Pueblo. It’s closed because of Covid and remains on my wish list for another lifetime. Have lunch in the Plaza and are on the road again, heading southwest of Taos to the area that inspired Georgia O’Keeffe. Many stops to take pictures and visualize a painting.
rock formations
changing shapes
in the blink of an eon
No cars on the road. No one about. Yet there are signs that people live here. A signpost with a name. Wire fences. A gate. A life decreed by family heritage and love of the land or by circumstance? I see both its attractions and deterrents.
open range—
rumbling over the cattle guard
on a dirt road
the hot wind—
in the scrub oak’s shadow
a few cows
Finally. . . Abiquiu, a village built on the ruins of a Tewa pueblo. Tea at the inn before heading to the Ghost Ranch, Georgia O’Keeffe’s studio.
layers of colored rock
the many stories
the old people tell
the wide sky
breathless and silent
I hear the past
Drifting Sands------
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. . .and the living is easy
It’s summer. Birds are pecking at the feeder and suet cage. Chickadees, sparrows, cardinals, woodpeckers, juncos, finches. They chase each other away—bullies with wings. There’s no need to provide food for them now, but I like to watch them. There are seeds, insects, berries and worms aplenty in the wooded areas around my condo. They have learned where food is readily available. Freeloaders! The whole lot of them.
“Pick Your Own Berries”
I buy a basket
filled by the farmer
Contemporary Haibun Online
THE DIG
Day 1:
An orange earth digger, jack hammers, men with shovels in yellow vests and hard hats —all here to replace a faulty water line. Get my car out of my garage and park in the visitors’ parking, I’m advised. No need. Decide to cancel plans made earlier. Will go out tomorrow. Bad decision, that. As holes gets deeper, dirt mounds get higher. No way into my condo, no way out. After some hand wringing, a path is cleared. Can now get to mailbox across the road. However, there is no mail because the mail truck cannot get past the equipment and barricades. At the end of the day, a gaping hole at the bottom of my driveway covered over with a flimsy board and blocked by orange and white bars attached to orange cones. Oh, my! How they do love orange.
lives lived,
long before memory,
deeply buried
till a random hoe or spade
frees a shard of mystery
Day 2:
More digging. A new area under my window. Out comes the grass. Out comes the spirea bush. Out come my white lilies which took two years to bloom. I look down and see only a hard hat. China appears to be the destination. The earth digger extends its teeth, bites into new territory, chews its way along the road past the next condo unit. Clunk, clunk. clunk. The show is only minimally mesmerizing. Time for a relaxing cup of herbal tea. Choking sounds from the faucet. Water has been turned off. Fortunately, I have a kettle full of water. With my tea and a book, I retreat to the living room and a comfy chair away from the clunking of the earth digger. At the end of the day, there are two deep craters and a long trench, but I have water.
digging through time
finding bits of this and that
trash and treasures
writing tales of how it was,
how we think the pieces fit
Day 3
The hole under my window is filled in. The hard hats move down along the trench. The earth digger returns to crater number one. It gets wider, deeper. A workman tells me water will be off. I fill the kettle. I will have my tea. Didn’t think about the cleaning woman due in a couple of hours. Should have filled buckets. She arrives, having walked from visitors’ parking. Turns on faucet. Sputters. Spits. Hisses. Water still off. Just dust and vacuum I tell her. She takes two buckets and talks to the hard hats. One stalwart fellow leaps the trench, takes the buckets and goes down the road, past the trench, and returns with water. Cleaning of my condo continues. Meanwhile, hard hats take a lunch break. Begin to wonder how long will my driveway end at the lip of a canyon. Begin to wonder if I should send out a SOS to my family. Three o’clock. Hard hats have been moving rapidly this past hour. No need to alert family. The driveway crater is filled and dirt leveled. I can take my car out. The trench under my window is covered with boards and marked with orange cones. Piles of rocks are loaded into a truck and hauled away. The earth digger is parked and the road is quiet.
tagged and labeled
each item in a ledger
nothing left ignored
history in a bowl,
a trinket or a cup
Day 4
All quiet on the cul-de-sac. No earth digger, no hard hats. Nothing. Nada. The dig is a work in progress, and progress is slow.
showcased in museums
photographed and discussed
the past brought forward
to question and to learn
and find a better way
Cattails June 2023
