Acknowledgments:
With Photograph by Patsy Kinser, Sand Springs, OK
From recent road trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico

a modern sky
right in front of me
each footstep marked
by only stars above

sunlit grasslands
held in red rock canyons
open vulnerable wounds
in abandoned adobe houses

a single
blue aluminum chair
sits alone
in a walled chamber room
where voices once rose in song
of cherished childhood dreams

native wind flutes melodies
where wood smoke heated
& fought off the chill
of long winter nights

layered red clays
brick & stone
past forms molded &
hand hewned logs
set upon earthen floors

surrounded
by adobe walls
stone cold
& open
wooden frame transoms
where double doors once stood

time’s forgotten fences
unmended
no neighbors to keep
no repairs to be made

families
children
grand parents
generations moved on

long lost stories
whispered by ghosts
who roam the fields
in old Santa Fe