This next poem is probably the newest poem,
and maybe the newest thing that happened
in one of my recent visits to New Mexico.
Again, wandering around southern New Mexico.
It's probably my favorite part of the state, where
not as many people go and I guess
more things are hidden in a way there than in other more
popular areas.
Also, this is a response to hearing a wonderful reading
by one of my favorite poets, Robert Wrigley, who I think
teaches up in Idaho.
"The Horns at Sierra Ladron, New Mexico."
"I focus on the ocotillo branch, wasp dancing
through the brittle hair of the straw,
missing the spider web stretched across the path.
I avoid the thorns, watch two owls depart in flight, red ants
streaming on the ground.
Someone hides on the other side of the stream
whose bells ring like water, tracing the Earth too late.
He has followed my trail, folds of green leaves
and cactus bulbs steering us to imperfection as we
see what we have been told.
There are elk horns up in the tree.
We were asked to bring them back,
take the scars out of the tree in the season that kills
the rain, the horns becoming local legend
before they disappear.
They are entangled a few feet above the ground
in the branches of the tree, perhaps there for years,
the elk shedding its horns the way I avoid the cave beyond.
The rocks in the opening are lined with moss,
a place I have known.
Staring at the cave I have been inside before, blind
and afraid of movement that pulled at the mighty head,
and took its horns.
I won't emerge from there, climb to the sun
instead, the cliff a forgiven thing as I
hear the rattler nearby.
I can't see it.
Stick my thumb in a prickly pear instead,
meet the challenge of the matted grass,
the quick blue jay, the paws of a man stalking himself below.
I think fire but cannot kiss the finger,
a sudden rodent disappearing under a rotting trunk.
As I step again, a rumble in the distance.
When I turn to find the dark clouds, the one who was hiding
stands and runs.
In his footprints, I see the way down.
In his serving ground, he leaves a sign for me in his carvings
on the tree, perhaps my name.
I go back to the horns.
I want to pull them from the branches
but can't reach them, or touch the fading white
of those twisted swords that were left up there for someone,
not me.
The thunder nears as I slip on the slick floor of leaves.
Go down easy to sit against the tree
under the horns that point to the far road.
When I get to my knees, I hear them breaking and splintering,
a shadow bringing the story I wanted about the man
who ran out of there."