SEASONS OF FORGIVENESS II

by Dick Altman

Climate change is reshaping the American economy. New Mexico is leaning on ecotourism and sustainable industries to see it through, but extreme weather keeps getting in the way. —The New York Times, December 10, 2022

Northern New Mexico

Your sky’s downcast—clouds testy/twitchy
as broncos—stampedes ashen/rusty as tea—
Your breath a wave of gray—mauling—
across Rio Grande’s valley from me—
shores of the Jemez Mountains—
horizon’s serpentine spine—wind’s
womb – hissing/growling—eager
to gust me off my feet—Westerlies—yours—
slam body – flash into face walls of dust –
dirt road’s heavings—worn/restless—
as if to warn—Indian/Anglo alike—
you mean to hang—come winter—
all of us out to dry—we of high desert
who worship you—you without yielding
a glisten of grief—
 
You make no attempt to hide from me
your anger—La Nina’s avenging
herself—from the far Pacific—on land
history’s riven—dancing on the blade                           
of survival—denying us your blood—
that flourishes mind/body/flower—
Snow’s florets—like white roses—
bloom at the highest heights—hardly
enough—come spring—to succor
lowlands of range/field/pasture—
Vaults of roots lie in hollow dark—
I listen to them whisper/beg for sky’s
sweet sweat to envelope thread/throat—
vast schemes of arterial/arboreal twining—
desperate for clouds’ benediction—
 
Will you conjure the Rio Grande                      
into Old West’s version of Big Muddy—
the Santa Fe River into a drought-
starved trail of sand—acequias—
irrigation ditches—lifelines centuries old—
into runnels of emptiness—Or will you
relent/unfurl—after all—a semblance
of season’s radiance—moon seeing—
as in mirror—its face reflected back
to itself—Some glimmer that La Nina
will yet mercy us—that mountains—
pearlescent—emerge before my eyes—
to melt into rages of ebb and flow—
riverine bounty—yours—pouring
into mouths of petal/leaf/needle/heart
 
 
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.

WHEN THE AIR COULDN'T HOLD

by Dick Altman

Four killed in helicopter crash after assisting with East Mesa Fire 

—Santa Fe New Mexican, July 17, 2022

Northern New Mexico

I once believed the high

desert immune to fire.

Until I watch in terror a blaze

in the Jemez Mountains,

west of me, nearly consume

Los Alamos’ atomic city.

                   *

And so spin the blades

and up the chopper rises,

as if lofted by the very flames

it douses again and again

with water by the bucketful.

Until its cargo of four, lives

with every pass in peril,

points wearily for home.

                    *

Never thought a fire 20 miles

east, ignited in April, would

refuse to go out until mid-June. 

We may not have much water,

but we have countless mountains

of tinder eager to torch earth,

sear and drought-riven.

                    *

And so we resort to birds

(and planes) to siphon water

from a distance. After awhile,

the droning pulse of copters

infiltrates dreams. Smoke,

from the moment you awake,

is a never-absent cup

of acrid reality.

                        *

And today’s bird? Had I felt it

thrumming overhead?  Before

a few seconds of downdraft—

will we ever know?—transforms

it from an angel of life into one

of death. And blades that morph

into wings, caught in gravity’s net,

plunge to the bottom of a sea of air.

 

 

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.