near the surface,
just beneath the sounds of our feet
among the bones, are arrowheads
maybe a spent cartridge from the bluecoats
who brought a strange thunder,
disturbing the a cappella birdsong,
deeper
hidden in eons of darkness, unperturbed,
until now, by the shallow, scratching efforts
of the creatures above,  
a black organic soup, remnants of plants
and animals who once breathed  
like we, we who now voraciously drill
through the tired but tenacious skin  
to reach a rich marrow, one we resurrect
to blaspheme in our mobile ovens
and scatter ashes
on a deaf and dying rock  

Post Script:
The earth never forgets.
Whatever we do to ****** it is recorded, often in ways undecipherable to man, but etched  permanently somehow, somewhere.
Does the earth seek revenge?
Or is it retribution, or a reckoning?
Anything that has the power to recall every act in infinite detail and in perpetuity has the potential to respond.
Maybe a propensity to respond?  
Is the earth an angry god?
I do not know, but
the earth never forgets.

he had a third beer
before the hot platters came    
he would have had another, had she not
stared, like she going to ask every question
he did not want to answer…
how did it feel to slap his first wife?    
how did it feel to pull the trigger  
and mow men down like so many weeds?
those were the questions in her eyes  
and had he ever told anyone, what happened that night  
when they came upon a village, where the young ones
slept with the dead, their ancestors
only a few feet away, watching, mute,
beyond the paddies where they planted the rice,
the narrow trails where they hunkered and spoke
the ancient tongue, not adulterated by the romance of the French
or the clumsy amalgam of shredded sounds from the new soldiers  
the giants who ignored them in the steaming light of day
but came one night, bringing strange smells, oiled steel
muzzles pointed at their faces, shoved into their empty ears
grunting and groaning in an even more grotesque tongue  
leaving tears and trembling in their wake,
the torn flesh, the wounded wombs, the silken vessels  
meant to be there for the milky planting of tomorrow’s seeds  
not the greedy groping of the interloper’s devilish deeds  
was she asking about that night, the sounds he recalled
like puppies under heavy foot, or worse, like
the madding moaning of his own sister
when someone ripped her open  
not in the distant killing fields
but in the back seat of her car  
not two miles from where they sat  
where he ordered more beer, and
she asked those questions with her silence,
with her eyes, the questions he would never answer  
not after all the beer, in all the free world,
and he was pitifully glad
they served no sushi, in Kiki’s, though
the sharpened knives were there
ready for his confessional
and the raw slaughter of truth

I could not talk him down, or
listen him up,  though that is
what I was trained to do, tried to do  
he gazed only at the street,
his final resting place, where  
he would soon be
a crushed crimson spectacle
for greedy and empty eyes  
whose mouths would tell
of his demise, but none
even knew his name,
I learned it was Everett, and  
that he had three daughters
lost in suburbia, eons from this ledge
where he stood, and talked to a stranger  
who was stranger than he  
for I looked to the skies
above the humming city, as if
they would be my salvation  
an airy home to spread wings
with angels, and glide endlessly
through blue heavens, but Everett knew  
there were no winged saviors awaiting him  
to grab him before his lonely leap
only the unmovable slab of concrete below
the craned necks of other flatlanders  
who would watch his final descent
and not realize his brief eternal fall
through the invisible place between two worlds  
would be the closest any would ever be  
to freedom

they acted as if I was not there  
alone with my elbows on Formica, only six feet from their booth    
she said she wished his mother was not moving to town  
“I wish she had not outlived Dad” he said,
his eyes looking through the window  
like he expected to see her appear  
or perhaps, through the old glass, he saw his father
stretched out in a dark pressed suit, silent, supine  
while his mother sat tall in the first pew  
feigning agony for the loss
of something she never found  
her face hidden in her hands
while the priest prayed, and
spoke of the man he did not know,
one who had only come to his church  
after time had silenced his days  
and the embalming fluid filled his veins  
but mother wanted the mass  
mother wanted a glistening casket
a shining home he would not even see  
“Dad did not believe”  
“I know” she said,
stroking his hand that held an indifferent cup
from which he had not drunk a drop  
“I know, but it was for the family”  
“*******, we are the family” he said,
pulling away, sitting upright in his own pew  
again looking through the glass  
I knew, he must have been back
with his father, when they sat
together for the feast,
or that moment in time when his father  
released his grip from the bicycle
for the first and final time
setting him free to spin down the roads
his father knew too well, perhaps
even the one that ended in this café  
where on a mournful Monday  
he and his wife would lament loss
over unbroken bread, and let a stranger
hear their tormented tale

thumb frozen, ears red in the cold heat  
Interstate-25 apocalyptically empty, windless and mute
my northbound shoes the only sound
on the dull dawn’s ashen, soundless stage  
what other survivor of a sleepless rocky mountain night
would I encounter?  when would I see another face?  

the cars came with the sun as it struggled to make
white progress in a gray sky  
they passed me, again and again
like I was not there, or
little more than a faded billboard
they chose not to read  

when her brake lights came on,
a half mile down the road, I ran towards her
wondering if I had been an afterthought
a simple ambiguity
her black Porsche 911 backed up to meet me  
a turquoise covered hand opened the door
extended itself to me in the warm sea of air
in her tiny cabin, “Hi, I’m Myra”
“Denver?” I asked
“No, just the Springs, but we’ll see what he can do”  
and Myra and I flew by the cars that had passed me  
I gave each a haughty stare, those slower vessels
that had left me there, to freeze on a Colorado plain  

“Escaping” from Taos she said, from a bar
on Canyon Road, where “he” had turned on her,
spilled their sacred secrets like beer on the tavern floor  
she made her exit when he was in the john,
******* or puking, she knew not which,  now,
at 90 miles per hour with a stranger half her age  
she was spilling her own secrets into my eager ears
her black mini skirt, red skin tight sweater spoke to me  
as much as her words--she was there for the taking  
precious flesh ready for greedy consumption
her stone heavy hand touched my leg, punctuating her story  
with breathy exclamation points, plaintive question marks
and prescient pregnant  pauses, I wondered
where she would take me or if she would take me  
“Denver?” she asked, “Mind a little detour?”
it didn’t matter where, thumb time
is measured in miles, not minutes,
and Denver was as cold as the road
from which she plucked me    

her house was a wall of glass,
with Pikes Peak framed perfectly
by her bedroom window, and when  
we finally swam smoothly on the waves of her waterbed  
she cried out that all was beautiful again
now that she was home, in the shadow of her mountain
in the arms of a stranger, whose seed rolled down her leg
as she moved farther from the Taos tavern and
whatever truth she could not face  

I wanted more of her, but the intoxication of strangers
lasts only minutes longer than full blooded wine  
she called me a cab, and in a black silk robe
glided me to the door, where she laid $100 in my hand
“The plane is warm and the airfare is only $39”
I tried to kiss her one final time
when the taxi stopped at her steep drive,
but she buried her face in my chest,
“No more, he will be here soon”  

the midmorning sun now burned the sky blue  
the cabbie slapped his meter on
and I was back to measuring minutes and miles  
I looked back for as long as I could  
and saw the perfect reflection of her mountain
in all that shining glass, her black silhouette
only a curious slice in the reflected portrait
of the beautiful fleeting morn

I
left
you    
at the café while
you were in the water closet
I got on the bus,
handed the driver my last twenty
before I even asked where he was going
I saw you, through the café window
as the bus pulled away,
puffing diesel fumes
in its hissing wake
I saw you, side by side with
the gray reflection of a weathered Apache squaw
who
hunkered outside in the fading veil of smoke    
like a mocking twin who shared the glass and light
with the young you,
white princess with ruby lips
a purse full of treasured trash
and words I did not want to hear
waiting to spill from your mouth
I had been gone two years in the flying fortresses
deafened by the din of their moaning motors,
our machine gun fire
and the nightmare fighters
sent to the blind skies to escort us to hell
I counted the desperate days
and the missions I had yet to fly
until my feet could finally touch ground
and my eyes could see the light of you
then your letters said less and less
and I no longer kept them
folded in my leather coat
two miles from earth,
like the parchment talisman
I once dreamed them to be  
you had left me before
I left you, and I knew, but
‘twas easier to chew a quiet lie
than to swallow a screaming truth
I did wonder if you walked into the street,
if you asked the Mescalero lady
if she saw me leave  
though I did not look back
once the bus passed Lordburg’s lone light
nor did I long for you any longer
in the dreadful night

“Jeopardy” replaced
by ominous clouds
on Doppler’s screen
rains came!

he runs not for the finish line
for he knows the setting sun is
only a melting chat between dark and light
between dreamy sleep and wakeful flight

his eyes tell a tale not of what he has seen
but of what lives in the space between
what can be and what cannot
and what can be sensed, but not taught

when we speak to him of earthly ways
and our conscious counting of finite days
his eyes can only partially conceal
what dreams we are about to steal

our chiseling chatter is meant to teach
but his drifting dreams are beyond our reach
and one day soon he will slowly awake
to the sorrowful sound we are forced to make
when we cunningly convince him his race must end
and that all his dreamy glory was just pretend

The origin of spiritual sustenance is defined differently by each person. Most attribute it to a divine power or some God incarnate that helps us, limited corporeal beings that we are, relate to a deity or to the infinite. Like billions of other sentient souls, this is a way of "seeing" or believing that I have embraced on some level. However, when I ask myself what sustains me beyond this, I am taken down another path.

That path leads me to the crumbling adobe dwellings or sometimes to the freshly painted stucco buildings scattered across the great southwest. That path leads me to something more tangible or palpable than I can glean from traditional halls of worship. I am led instead to a simple yet profound vision--the sight of a hot plate of Mexican food.

Here is where a slight or perhaps dramatic shift in the way one thinks about the spirit is required. This is not necessarily a new concept but merely my take on it. You have all heard of "Soul Food" as it applies to the cuisine of the African American community or more generically in recent years, "comfort food". Also, some of you may recall me saying at one time or another, truly good junk food bypasses all vital organs and goes straight to the spirit. Let me clarify that last line--it is not that I believe the physical laws of the universe are suspended when one eats certain kinds of food—calories will still be consumed, the food digested and metabolized, etc. Instead, I believe, like so many things spiritual, eating Mexican Food transcends the natural laws of the universe as we know them.

This begs the question, why Mexican food as opposed to some other fare like Chinese or good old fried catfish, a southern favorite? The answer is simple. Some people, because of where they were, who they were, and when they were, are Christians, some are Hindus, some are Muslims and some are witches. I am a worshipper of Mexican food.

My sustenance, therefore, comes not from those in polished marble and stone palaces, clad in clerical garb and carrying holy texts. Instead, it comes from humble servants scurrying about hot kitchens doing what they do perhaps simply to feed their families—from my point of view, a noble endeavor in and of itself.

From the time I see a Mexican eatery through a bug-splattered windshield, I notice its energy or aura. When I open the door and see the gaudy but somehow authentic colors on sombrero covered walls, and hear playful Mariachi, and smell the frying tortillas, I know I have entered one of the houses of the holy. Truly, the colors, the sounds, the sights and the smell all take me to a higher place.

This sounds strange to most readers I am sure, but if I were speaking of a nature walk in dew covered grass among the scent of lofty pines, listening to the sound of songbirds, all could relate to its transcendent quality. We somehow place pristine nature above nature sculpted in a way for human benefit. I do this myself, except when it comes to Mexican food or perhaps a beautifully restored VW van, but that is another story.

To return to my original premise, the spiritual value of Mexican food—when the hot oblong platter is placed in front of me, I first notice its colorful array on the plate. Imagine a platter with red and blue corn chips, gray/brown frijoles covered with white cheese, orange rice, chili verde (green), a golden cheese covered enchilada, olive green guacamole, red ripe tomatoes with rich green cilantro and snow white onions, and last of all deep green jalapenos, forming a colorful tapestry and visual feast. (Contrast this with a hunk of brown steak, pale green peas, and a white glob of mashed potatoes.)

The scent of this feast immediately attacks my olfactory bulb and like so many smells, has the power to evoke startlingly clear memories. For me, I am taken to a place where the door opens to a moonless starry sky. I am in the desert, perhaps for the first time. I am in the desert, being courted by the dark desert lady who still haunts my soul in the night. I go back there so many nights, when all is quiet and my long day’s journey into night is finished. This vast, dark and inhospitable land that has called holy men to it through the ages calls me, a man as common as the cook whose labors unwittingly took me there. I huddle among the cacti, creatures who ask the earth for so little. I feel the endless winds that carry the remnants of a thousand ancient souls across the black Sonoran sky and rattle the door from where I came, as if still asking for entrance to a place where they can no longer dwell. Long ago, they returned to the desert for a final time, and now, a thousand nights and a thousand miles away, they mix with the holy night air as only desert dust can, and for a moment tempt the living, but then return to the black night. I do not yet join them—the door still opens to me. I can still see the colors, hear the sounds and place earthly but heavenly morsels in my mouth, and ask for more salsa.

Outside, in the dark desert, the night waits for me, but I have a few more bites to take, and a few more words to write, and to borrow a line from another, a few more miles to go before I sleep—thus, the spiritual value of Mexican food.