It’s gray here and almost nothing
more needs saying
in Michigan winter a survival
course in tricking your mind desperate
remainders of sun, color and light winnowed
from holly berries, mulched pansies a faint
reflected summer shimmers open
to lavender and mango skies mountains
(always the mountains) vision of dry rivers
and chamisa New Mexico blossoms belief
collapses past and future, here and there
until tonight in the damp, cold dark
I walk from this gray here, my past
down this brown-grassed hill dive
through the iced pond swim
into the Rio Grande
walk into “the tent of your blessed funkiness”
into Albuquerque
*”the tent of your blessed funkiness” is from Dee Cohen’s poem, “Slouching Toward ABQ.” “Postcard to New Mexico appeared in a slightly different form at The Sunday Poem at the Duke City Fix.
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Sandra Vallie’s work has appeared in Adobe Walls, Airplane Reading, Red Ravine, and in the Sunday Poem at Duke City Fix. Sandra’s blog, Writing It Down In The High Desert, can be found at sandrarenee.com. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
200 New Mexico Poems 