In memory of Jane Hardy
Every time we round the horse
Shoe curve, I hear her voice,
“I know I am almost home”.
And she was right unless you
Drive too fast or someone hits you.
But with good luck ahead lies
An expanse of land sliced open
By a geological knife, a ragged cut
So deep it’s hard to see the bottom.
Visitors with fancy cameras almost wreck
Their cars to gawk in disbelief.
Even before the road El Monte Sagrado
Witnessed it all, like a good father
He watched and waited
As time and weather slowly changed the landscape:
A fallen rock here, an uprooted tree there,
A heavy snow one year, a raging fire the next,
But mostly man and his metal tools
Digging and scraping the earth
Building monuments that distract our eyes.
Each time we survive the curve
Our eyes grow bigger
Each time we swear
This time
We will not be amazed
By what lies ahead.
—
Kayce Verde grew up in Black Mountain, NC, the place made famous by the avant garde college. She studied poetry in Taos with ‘Annah Sobelman, attended The San Miguel Poetry Week, and The Squaw Valley Writers’ Workshop. She was an invited reader at SOMOS Summer Writers’ s Series, St. Andrews College, and La Paz, Mexico. Her work has been published in New Mexico anthologies: The Practice of Peace and Earthships: A New Mecca Anthology, and Sin Fronteras in spring 2012.
200 New Mexico Poems 