I kneel before
my woodstove
kindling fire
in sapphire blue,
flaming orange gratitude
rising unbidden.
Bare limbs etch stories
against curved canvas
empty space – sky or dome
as Venus fades
and the day begins…
A golden dawn
awakened the Ravens.
Fluffed feathery balls
perched on frost slipped
trees whose crystals
shivered in a landscape
tipped in white gold –
each twig on fire
from the rising sun.
Swooping down for
cracked corn, coal black
Messengers quork
and hop as small
birds retreat.
January’s fur coat
is white.
My brother is dead.
I think of polar bears.
Blue ice
cracks under frightened claws –
Roots starve for water.
Dying slices my
joy in two
even as evening
grosbeaks
come to feed
and sea smoke
rises from the river.
Working Notes
January in New Mexico is like a dream when snow covers the ground twisting cactus into fantastic shapes and coating wheat colored grasses in silver helping me to forget that they never turned green. Crystal ground stars are so brilliant they hurt my eyes as I tramp around happily on snow-shoes under a warm afternoon sun and awaken to a frozen world. I am lulled into a peace I know is temporary because below four inches of snow the drought rages on shrinking the roots of each thirst driven plant and tree. There isn’t enough snow cover for Northern New Mexico’s mountains to create spring run off, the precious water that is needed for frogs to breed and corn to grow. Alpine glow brings down the night and the Great Bear rises in the North and still I pray for water…remember my dead, and the Great Dying to come.
Meet Mago Contributor, Sara Wright.
for this we grieve Sara