East is always up,
the Sandia mountains compassing the gravity of home.
Time sediments west from earliest memories
mining for Copper in the foothills
walking in gridded geometries toward Moon
a Collet Park childhood
a city bus ride's distance up Lomas
from Grant's middle school tomb.
Life didn't break open past Wyoming
until the University cranked open its creaky arms
to my college curiosity
where place and poetry and history and philosophy
took root in me
with mentorships that grew episodic
like cottonwoods
close to a river that I only discovered years later
coming home
to myself and a family that knew
the richness here
was the only food for DNA
shaped like lava
bedrock
sanded over with dust
decorated by ancient hands
whispering in winds
tickling volcanic escarpments
that laugh the stories
of our oldest neighbors.
Love began again
with the choice to start a new family
in the caldera of an extinct fire
in the valley of friends
ringing my days and years
with reminders of who I have been
who I have said I wanted to become
in this place that leaves me no place
to
hide.
(Photo: Roberto E. Rosales)
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