Entangled

After a summer of rare, drenching rains, tumbleweeds took over the Valley. Dislodged by September winds, the skeletal clumps huddled along our dirt roads, skittered across stones, bounced hopelessly in the wake of speeding vehicles. They ventured out of the rural areas and ended up in town, always in the most inappropriate places. One afternoon I passed a pickup truck driving down the highway with a weed stuck in its grille like a jaunty brown corsage. Another thistle-ball, at least two feet in diameter, blocked State Street across from our favorite coffee shop, mocking that small attempt at civilization. 

Uprooted flocks raced across the plains when the wind kicked up, their passage blocked by barbed wire fences. They clung to the wire with grim desperation until a November blizzard released their grip.

softening under snow

the harsh entanglements
of autumn

Christmas 2013

El Santuario de Chimayo, New Mexico
Photo by Eric Havelock-Bailie - December 2013

Abandoned Furniture

Locals who've been in the Valley for awhile say the snow hasn't been this deep east of Alamosa since the early 1990s. We got about a foot-and-a-half last week in Blanca Flats. Wind-sculpted banks lay over the furniture left by one of our neighbors. I explored the site with the dogs this afternoon and found an unoccupied sofa, a lonely silhouette of civilization against a wilderness of white. 

There was also (of course) a broken toilet peeking out of a snowdrift. Imagine using the commode in this hypothermic environment, meditating on the monochromatic hills . . . .

Signs of Winter

October morning --

the mountain's blue couloirs

have already gone white

*   *   *

Tufts of ghost sage

turn to powder between my fingers:

all the words I've forgotten

Autumn Moon

I feel guilty about my failure to keep up with the seasons on this blog. I've watched the chalky summer prairies turn a dozen shades of green in the rain. I've seen that same rain bring the first snow to Blanca Peak weeks earlier than usual, then leave her brilliant green from the waist down. Phrases flicker through my mind, rarely stopping long enough to form three coherent lines. Sometimes being an observer is all I can handle. 

But as I looked back at my haiku diary today (the old-fashioned kind of diary, the one you don't show anyone), I realized that I had three haiku about the autumn moon, in different states of being. 

New moon --

over darkening fields

the white pendulum.

*   *   *

Equinox moon

transparent in a hard blue sky

at high noon.

*   *   *

Harvest moon;

the tumbleweed's brown spines

have turned magenta.

Passengers

Lately I've been taking the back roads to work to avoid the stress of construction on our rural highway (as a former resident of Denver and the San Francisco Bay Area, I know we're spoiled here, but I still hate traffic obstacles of any kind). When the land along Stanley Road shifts from acres of flat crop circles to the grassy bogs that border the Rio Grande River, the scenery turns from utilitarian brown to lush green. Cattle and horses graze in knee-deep grass along the river. Empty stuccoed farmhouses and gently toppling fences dot the meadows, with the occasional John Deere tractor or combine bringing me back to the 21st century.

This abandoned train car sits motionless at the edge of a pasture just beyond Road 102N. Old freight cars are a frequent sight in a valley whose economy was once dominated by the railroad, but passenger cars like this one are much less common. The car's interior is haunted by birds; its shattered eyes are lidded by the flapping remains of its window shades.

Nervous about being caught with my camera on private property, I jumped at a flock of shadows that suddenly filled the car. My overactive imagination told me that although years have passed since this car went anywhere, its seats might be occupied by apparitions of the past.

In reality, the abandoned house and its empty car seem to welcome visitors. I saw only one sign posted on the property, a faded placard that read, "No Hunting." I assumed that the sign referred to shooting wildlife, not hunting ghosts or memories. 

Wild Horses