Old Roads

On my return from Santa Fe to Albuquerque I repeated like a litany the names of the pueblos I passed, the reservations—Cochiti, Santo Domigo, Santa Ana—feeling them slip cool through my fingers one by one like the glass beads of my Venetian bracelet—broken now, and down to just a single bead.

I committed too to memory the black streaks that were rain against the hills, the watermelon curve of the Sandia Mountains, the towering brilliantly white thunderheads.

This is the land and sky that is in me, the familiar old shapes and savors of northern New Mexico.


image:   Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, Scott Catron