The Santa Fe Trail

The galleries have opened like jaws
to welcome the scurrying and terrified
tourists of the June day, who would
leave the sun-blindness outside, the dry air,

to enter the beautiful, the painterly,
the pure of their own indigenous link.
But then it rains. Along the road
are blown out tires and scrapes of tread

that lead to the last casino, a trail
of the dead leading the dead, and then
the soon-to-be, who have not yet spent
their children’s inheritance.

The pottery here is unique, made
of the raw earth, black and red,
and going for more than a miner makes
in a lifetime of bucketing up the dirt.

The writers come, to capture in words
the light as the painters have seen it,
illuminating the rose hills to the west,
near the nuclear facilities at Los Alamos.

From L.A. come the rest, the hordes
of humanity, the escapees from a coastal
malaise, from the worn-out, smoke-
choked freeways to hell, having cross

too often for a quickie weekend
in Tijuana, and now looking for heaven,
or anything else. And they find rest,
behind the adobe walls now
made of concrete, and rise late
in the evening to enjoy the simmering
tableside service, that cooks the veal
under just the right heat.