by Dick Altman
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| Pump jacks at sunset near Carlsbad, New Mexico. |
Climate-warming methane emissions rising faster than ever, study says. —The Washington Post headline, October 26, 2022
NASA said a methane plume about two miles (3.3 kilometers) long was detected southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico, in the Permian Basin, one of the largest oilfields in the world. —Barron’s, October 25, 2022
Northern New Mexico
Pump jacks looked to me—as a child
on the West Coast—like animated
Tinker Toys—Half a century later—
here on the high desert prairie—
they terrify me—Cows wander
and forage next to them—Hay
grows in the same field—Backyards
brim with them—Schools look out
on them—Indian reservations dance
with them—Oil and sister gas ops
balloon the air with toxic methane
wherever I look—Except I can’t see it—
unless—over the next hill—a flame
three-stories high—shatters the view—
Drive through “jack country”
and you’re afraid to breathe—
afraid—in mid-summer—to run AC—
afraid to hike ruins—because you
never know when you’re going
to run into “jack”—and all his bad
friends—Sometimes—at a distance—
they remind me of grazing buffalo—
their humped backs—connected
to bobbing heads—glaring down
from bluffs—I know they’re
machines—but unlike most—
they exhale—and what they
breathe out—you don’t want
to be caught breathing in—unless
of course—you want—over time—
to be caught dead—New Mexico’s
called “The Land of Enchantment”—
I call it “The Land of Bad Breath”
Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.
