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So Play Me Well
His guitar's like a mistress
Ready for caressing,
Ready for the kissing
So play me well and take me to that coming place
Somewhere between my heaven and hell
And if there is a hell, I will not tell
So play me well
His fingers gently ask for her melody
And she gives it because
She knows you are her lover
So play me well and take me to that coming place
Somewhere between my heaven and hell
There is no hell then when you caress me
So play me well
You slide your fingers down her neck
And find the notes she will not fail
To give back in a lover's wailing sigh
So play me well and take me to that coming place
Somewhere between my heaven and hell
And if there is a hell, I will not tell
So play me well
His guitar is his singer, his postman deliverer
Of a lover's letter; So send it soon
There will be a reply in smiles and applause
So play her well and take us to that coming place
Somewhere between a heaven and hell
There is no hell then when you caress her
So play her well
Beating swords into plowshares with chalk.
Not soon enough, we write again.
But you hear only the smooth fall.
I make that sound in the distance,
My shoulders are the red buttes of flagstone
Yet you sit beside me,
Once more I give birth to all
"Dream of me and know the life I could not live
Walking the juniper mesa
Slipping into frozen sleep;
And he whispered, still dreaming
On a sleepy Chama River bank the first of July, 2:30 p.m.
To a minutia insect doing its dance on a tiny yellow flower petal
A minutia of wind makes the riverbank grass bend
A minutia of sound from a bumblebee
Minutiae white and orange butterflies
Minutiae ants that build and gather
Mindful to note that an awesome landscape
S.R.A. Gilbert, a native New Mexican, was born in Belen, NM,
schooled there to high school and later attended the College of St. Joseph on the Rio
Grande which later became the University of Albuquerque. Presently, she works for the College of Education at the University of New Mexico. (July 05)
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Chalk Walks the Talk!
With sabers made of chalk we cut to the heart.
We make the sidewalk our clean slate.
With chalk in hand, we
Stop and kneel to the might of the pen...
Erase that...make it the might of chalk and
And our feverish print catches other eyes.
These sabers brandish our faith,
Brandish patience.
Brandish hate.
Brandish love.
For a brief chalky moment,
We beg you to look down and around youselves.
Like ocean waves rolling to shore and caressing our feet.
The words caress our minds
And wash away with the rain.
A River Speaks
I have flowed passed you for a million days.
You did not hear me breathe
As I said my hellos and goodbyes.
My path has been cut by my ancestors,
Who walked my bed of silt and sand, rocks,
Boulders and vast depths.
The crashing of my watery heart
Against all that blocks my way.
Until I see you again beside me,
You imagine where I go,
Who drinks from me,
Who takes the bubbly journey with me.
That toppling over myself, falling, rising and whirling.
A solitary hawk circles above the whirlpool
Waiting to dive on a fish caught in the dizzy wave.
My magpies skim my skin for long-legged dragonflies
That balance for a thrilling moment
Until a warm stomach takes them away from all they knew.
And still I'm never alone--
The shore touches me with grass
Filled with adoring ants and flies, bees and their cousins.
That have held me,
Loved me faithfully through the million days.
Days of fire.
Days of rain.
Days of molten earth.
Days of movement.
And still they glow red with memories.
They never stop speaking to me along my journey.
Willing to hear only me.
Glide with me.
Touch me with a yearning
You remember from the water sack
That bore you.
Now you are safely at my side.
That swims below and floats above.
A bit of foam, my breath.
I glimmer in your eyes, and
I journey on.
River Mother
From crystal heights, now flowing muddy
Turning silky green to mud again
To lie with a Mexican Gulf
She slides down to feed us in the valley
Cutting a path of fertility
Through an already enchanted land
A passionate mother, she carries herself
Screaming between canyon walls
A grand mother, she carries herself
Down the heart to feed her acequias
Mother to all her enchanted children
Parallel acequias suckle her
Hungry dry rows thirst
She's pregnant and dammed
Freed, wildly inching to the Gulf
To rest in the arms of this lover
Does he know what she is?
Where's she's been?
What a treasure she is?
She melts into him
The Ghost Lover of Dripping Springs
The black night sky exploded
With the fires of Independence Day
In Acoma's shadow,
Dripping Springs sparkled with fiery droplets.
And his brothers slept
And he dreamed the dream of a restless ghost
Whose cold breath blew fast
And cradled him with her cold hands.
Her ghost life filled his bed of junipers and rock
And whispered this story:
Creator's daughter, I led my sheep
Down dusty paths below Acoma walls
Singularly aloof until a preacher from El Paso
Came with sermons to win my soul.
Eyes the color of New Mexico skies;
Hair the color of freshly husked corn.
I saw but did not hear him;
And he saw only me,
Brown hair thickly braided
Milk white teeth shyly smiling
And reflecting only him.
Planning a life together;
He would come with horse and carriage for me.
On an icy Christmas night when luminarias
Would guide him to my stone house
Riding through to a snowy wedding march
He was to meet me here.
I waited a lonely purgatory
Looking for him
But have you really come?"
Reaching into her purgatory,
With words she wanted to hear:
"Dear phantom of Dripping Springs,
Rest in peace.
Your lover has finally come!"
Minutiae
Little things, tiny things,
Inconspicuous life-minutiae.
They never heard me say that
Minutiae meant nothing important,
Too tiny to waste my time-trivial details.
Minutia is alive and all too important to itself.
Oblivious beneath towering red sandstone buttes
Consuming my eye, my soul and senses.
Swallowing me for a moment until I listen.
As tiny as the petal but on top of its world.
Minutiae falls like cottonwood tree seeds
Floating like snowflakes that forgot it was summer.
And hum to a flock of ducks on the other side
That rest on a cool muddy bank
And stare at me staring at them.
As it clings to the bulbous petals
Of an unknown pink flower
Growing among the bending grass
That hums to it not paying attention.
That never cease fluttering,
Seeming to never light,
Always searching,
Surprising the brown land with color.
Along the trail to the river
Their land, not mine it seems.
I'm careful to not step on their work.
Will always consume me, while
Minutiae below it belong to my path.
Making that landscape come alive.
Oh, how not so trivial!