(Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, NM)
sits serenely on her blanket
so as not to distance herself
from her hallowed Mother Earth.
Hand-tooled silver
astonishes the still cool shade.
Turquoise dazzles widened eyes
like nuggets of polished sky.
As she watches the buyer
walk away with her last
turquoise bench bead necklace,
she lowers her head
as if in prayer,
stomaching the loss
of yet another
vestige of her soul.
—
Larry D. Thomas, a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, was the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate. He has published eighteen collections of poems, most recently A Murder of Crows (Virtual Artists Collective 2011). His New and Selected Poems was long-listed for the National Book Award.
200 New Mexico Poems 
‘like nuggets of polished sky’–thanks for this fine line, and for all the rest.
Thank you for the kind comment. It is much appreciated.