New Year's Eve 2017: Eldorado, New Mexico

This morning Michaela and I were in Eldorado, a small town just south of Santa Fe. Although only a twenty-minute drive from where we live, Eldorado seems to always have a slightly different weather pattern. When its dry here, it's snowing there. When it's light here, it's dark there. Strange winds blow through Eldorado, winds we jokingly (and sometimes not so jokingly) call: "Bruja/Brujo winds." Witch wind…

 But that's not what I want to talk about…

From anywhere in town you get a shot of the Cerrillos Hills to the west. They look dusty and cragged, probably because black and gray shale is widely exposed across the hills. 

Standing in an empty parking lot this morning, studying them, I thought, because of how ancient they are - the sense that they have been keeping watch for so, so long

- how they could be related to something I sometimes feel inside my body when I am going through intense emotions (terror, joy, grief…from the death of a loved one, a life-threatening situation, love lost…) 

- an eye that watches it all, extremely curious, thinking "oh, this is interesting…" 

I suppose I could put this down to detachment or dissociation from the emotion, but that doesn't really do the sensation justice - because while this "watching" is happening, I am still feeling the emotion burning through all my cells…

And so, the new year's eve poem:

Eldorado, New Mexico,

New Year's Eve Morning

Leaves scrape across an empty parking lot.

Purple, brown shades in the nearby brush. Faint tints of red.

A rabbit waits beneath the brush, imitating the dead.

Across the flats, silhouette of the Cerrillos hills, cragged

                      and dark with shale, ancestors

   of that part of us that keeps endless vigil; a curious eye,

                                                 through fire, grief, fear, loss…

The dead leaves move towards me.

Wind rustles the rabbit's fur, my hair.

Winter's colors deepen.

********

Happy New Year!