#57 An Aged Navajo Artisan by Larry D. Thomas

(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.

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#41 FIRE CLOUDS by Alice Lee

In one of the overpriced galleries of Santa Fe,
We discover the work of a Japanese potter.
She uses the micaous clay of northern New Mexico.
The pots, all shapes and sizes, fired traditionally,
Create dark areas on the luminescent surface.
Unearthly, they glow,
Like the setting sun on the horizon,
The night settling into itself.

—

Alice Lee has been published both nationally and internationally in many journals and anthologies. She has been awarded artist residencies at Hedgebrook, Yaddo, Villa Montalvo and England and France. She is the former editor and publisher of Orca Press and Whistle Lake Press. Besides writing poetry, she also enjoys painting, gardening and travel. She lives in Santa Fe with her husband, writer, Wayne Lee, and her two golden retriever service dogs.

aliceroselee.com

#13 The Limits of Civilization by Elizabeth Raby

Eleven o’clock in the morning,
the scream of coyotes
from the neighbor’s front yard
brings us out from our winter-sealed
rooms to stand in the snow
admiring the snarls, yips and howls.
Between us and them, the coyote
fence, as advertised, does its work,
so the chorus is heard but not seen.
We don’t know how many choristers
nor the cause of their dissonant song,
but it is somehow comforting to realize,
that even here in the city, creatures
so uncivilized, so anarchic and wild,
persist and thrive.
—

Elizabeth Raby’s three full-length collections have been published by vacpoetry.org, the most recent being This Woman. Raby has lived in Santa Fe since 2000.  She has read at the New Mexico Women Authors Book Festival and has given workshops for New Mexico Women in the Arts.