Bosque Del Apache

From Green Country to cougar country

Overalls worn where serape styling reigns

Corn-fed meets cactus blossoms

Where regret is rare as rain

A cairn here, a cairn there

This trail leads to God-knows-where

Ascent in red sand and flint

Pinyons pock the landscape

Weathered crones, cruelly bent

There’s something magic

In that perfumed air

I’d tell you what,

You greenhorn,

But I know you wouldn’t care

Just lizards

and rocks

and spirits

deathly close

everywhere

Two tired legs later

Two widened eyes agape

Elevation---and the breath is gone

Consideration---and the hate

And the vista steals the soul

Like vapor in the desert wind

I march to Chupadera

Who knows the time

Before I cut this way again

I’ve heeded Abbey,

With his monkey-wrenching ways

And considered the Scotsman Muir,

With his ever-reaching gaze.

So I’ll take a snapshot

Right between eyes

Where the Rio Grande slithers

into the Chihuahuan, winedark skies

I know Glen Canyon’s buggered

And I know the redwoods sawn

I’ve seen the miles of headlights

Slashing yellow through the dawn

This highway,

Black and tarmacked

Old New Mexico 25

Like a bullsnake with temper

Offers far too much to drive

Seal her off

Shut the curtains

Put some signs amid the lane

For the Bosque is fine without her

Without the traffic

And the rain

The Rio is the only highway

That the Sandhills need to thrive

Man’s intrusion

Labeled progress

Only serves to spread the lies