By: Dick Altman
Wildfire’s Song/ Day 47
Northern New Mexico
If a month-and-a-half of smoke could speak –
it would sing to me of a million trees lost –
how each survived years of high winds
and drought -- how each watched prairie
turn into ranch – farm – and pastureland
how each witnessed generations of children
and herds grow up together on the range
how each recalled the laughter – the lowing
of cows – wakes of passing – each era’s trucks
rusting in a distant field – how each recoiled
as gusts turned a burn manmade into an untamed
firestorm – how each went in seconds from life
to crackling death – how each’s high plains saga
of the sage swirled skyward in a cloud of ash
how each’s refrain rose – until losing breath –
and salted the earth with its lyric dust – how
each stalks my spirit – as I walk at twilight –
with charred voices of silence
Seasons of Forgiveness
Winter forgot you – spring never arrived
until July – high desert’s monsoon flooded you –
tides of ash poisoned you – yet you forgave –
without recompense – and brought back
to life earth – wherever I looked – beyond
anything in memory – you bloomed – aspen
soared – Russian sage purpled wall and walk –
Chamisa’s golden baguettes – like diamonds –
sang in the sun – you were happier than
I recall in years –
*
I could tell you weren’t eager for summer
to end – you would wake late – clouds
over the horizon waiting for you to set
the sky in motion – and when you did –
nimbus took on the aspect of monuments –
islands of civilization – you loved how
winds scattered them like a fallen deck
of cards – turbulence’s tectonic flows
clawing – clashing – climbing over
one another – igniting rages of sound
and light –
*
I hear you – in aspen’s nighttime surf –
whisper in dreams – hear you in coyotes’
ululations – tarantula’s torpid silence
after mating – feel you letting go –
greens – almost overnight – dying back
into shades of tired wheat – sage blossoms
falling like tears of rice – rain tree’s
lanterns glowing more copper than gold –
*
I hear – at a distance – geometries of geese
emerge – amaze how you choreograph
their burst from autumn’s clouds – turn
their music into songs of possibility – spring’s
rare desert bloom to come – feasting
on winter’s howling riches – summer’s rebirth
of flameless grace – after this year’s searing –
manmade hell – and I feel your forgiveness
ebb – without fanfare – into precarious serenity
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, Cathexis, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, 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.
(Wildfire’s Song/ Day 47) "Our historic Hermit’s Peak Fire occurred just miles from where I live on the high desert plains of northern New Mexico. Centuries-old forests literally went up in smoke in hours, for weeks on end. Somewhere along the way, I saw not only smoke, but imagined all the stories the trees held within their rings rising skyward as well. Out of that image arose Wildfire’s Song, Day 47. This is, after all, the Old West, of homes and lives and ranches on the range. Trees have witnessed it all. Who better to tell the story than those, to paraphrase Milton, who only stand and watch?"
(Seasons of Forgiveness) "It's been a biblical year out here at 7,000 feet on New Mexico's high desert plain--drought, fire and flood--and then a miraculous turnaround. I wanted to write, in a personal way, about a force--
call it natural or spiritual--omnipresent but not omnipotent, victim and benefactor, that played an undefined role in everything that happened. I found myself referring to this nameless force as "you". I could see, hear and feel "you", everywhere I turned. Out of tragedy and catastrophe came, or so it seemed on a metaphorical level, "your" forgiveness. The poem brims with images of vernal resurrection--and then autumnal ebb. Somehow "you" have returned balance and harmony to the land. A radiance about the future--for the moment."