After a few days, the superabundance
Of gawdy roadside crosses and dour
Hitchikers in heavy, dull clothing began
To wear me down, as if I weren't a stub
Of battered body already, badly stumbling.
After a tour of the touted Enchanted Circle
Scenic loop north of Taos, buttery aspens,
Dark spruce, a few small ski towns, lakes,
Three-thousand meter mountain passes,
Rain clouds raising and lowering scrims,
I retreated to my rented room in a converted
Hacienda, pulled the blinds, lit the candles.
One cross had been coated in orange chiles
And another had floral hoops and archways.
The actual cemeteries were concentrations
Of the same, lacking the great white Jesus
Statues of rural cemeteries in Quebec, but
Making up for it in extravagant colors, as if
A thousand bower birds had lost their minds.
Grief. We only haunt ourselves, and the end
Of our haunting is when we leave the colors
And the monuments, and the weary, hanging
Heads of hitchhikers, the names, the signs,
The stories behind. In the last gallery
Of the Millicent Rogers museum, a copy
Of a letter she wrote to her youngest son
Days before she died hung on the wall.
"And I thought if I stretched out my hands
They would be Earth and green would grow
From me. And I knew that there was no
Reason to be lonely that one was everything,
And Death was as easy as the rising sun
And as calm and natural. . . so that Being
Part of the Earth one was never alone."
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