Archive of New Mexico Poetry – Cynthia Gray
From the house on the High Road
the Bridge is invisible
but I know it’s there
Spread out below I can see the
crevasse carved by the Rio Grande
over lifetimes, generations
centuries, eons
And the option draws me back
time and again
to gaze from the studio window
Half longing
half filled with fear
as my fingertip traces
the winding gorge
framed
in the pane of glass.
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Daylight keeping him hidden within
Trickster comes out by night
Slinking down the arroyo
slipping around the base of the mesa
climbing over the escarpment
He stands
silhouetted
against the night sky
His desolate song echoes off the rocks
through me
chill and solitary
Summoning the prickling
of primeval response
Although
I know the long-buried threat
is not here
not now
Still the nightmares come
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The Cross
on San Juan de Josè’s peak
stands mute, but sharply etched
against the sky
white against the dark grey of the
impending evening storm
No ancient testament, this
left by colonial monks or priests
or pious Penitentes
but placed on a wild night
by Joe…
the friend
my neighbor invited to the party
Drunk or inspired
we couldn’t really say
but climb he did
right to the summit
with the carved wood held high
Now I watch Raven rest upon it
black on white against grey
(this is no four-color-glossy production)
Hovering, feeling the rising
wind summon
Raven soars upward into the clouds
through the divide of earth and sky
night and day
gone in a flash of Light
as thunder breaks
Challenge or reminder?
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Wind
dancing through
garden chimes
brings the fresh-smelling
herald
of the summer rains
to these Sangre de Cristo Mountains
and the mesa
with the Spanish saint’s name
hovering protectively
over my home
Thunder and chimes
sing a symphony
with
tin-roof percussion
counterpoint
God
in his benevolence
sees fit to cast
life-giving water
over these Blood of Christ peaks
for all creatures
sheltered herein
Refreshing, renewing,
reaffirming,
yes,
promising…
Transubstantiation
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These poems will be in Cynthia Gray’s new volume, forthcoming from Great Elm Press this fall. All poems © copyright 2000.
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