"we're going to see with new eyes / when we trip the light"

[larryhammer]

In Santa Fe, the usually pale chimisa brush is blooming, yellowing the hills -- random breezes are heady with their scent. On the mountains looking down on the city, the aspen are starting to turn, groves golden in patches. The nights are down to nippy, with the clarity of starlight.

It's autumn in New Mexico.


39. Jiǎn - Obstruction

Clouds gray with rain devour the ridge where fire
last spring left bare black snags. The road below it

crawls graveled switchbacks down sheer mountain slope --
our rush route out between two storms, we hope,

but round a corner, landslide: blocked. I slow. "It -- "
truck slews, stops, leans. "It can't be" -- yes: flat tire.

*
Meltdown's not an option -- not now, not here.
Deep breath. There. One thing at a time. Ground clear,

then jack and tire-iron -- nothing finer.
We pore through local maps as fat drops scatter:

"That logging road" -- which takes us, through mud and splatter,
to town, and comforts of a greasy diner.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is so vivid!

[larryhammer]

Thankee.

---L.

[mount-oregano.livejournal.com]

Tense and amazing.

[larryhammer]

The fun part is, it's a conflation of three different trips, only one of them actually in New Mexico.

---L.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! I get the impression New Mexico does nothing by halves...

[larryhammer]

Oh, sometimes it's by quarters, or even eighths. On the open range, the water can be even smaller fractions.

---L.

[janni.livejournal.com]

Autumn! Don't think I've ever been in NM for anything but the earliest days of same.

[larryhammer]

Definitely early autumn now. Some of the river trees have started yellow, and the virginia creepers are bright, bright red. But the cottonwoods are completely green, and even on the uppermost slopes the aspens are only patchworked.

---L.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Wonderful--and I am delighted by (reading your comments above) how seamlessly you wove together several experiences into one encounter.

I love the warm comforts of your final destination after slipping between two storms. The flat tire has the feel of something done to you by one of the Greek gods--that level of spite and danger.

[larryhammer]

Thankee. When writing I even overtly autobiographically, the result is often more than one incident woven together.

---L.