Jasper's Satellite

Lamy Train Station

Tamales and Dirt

Chimayo sings holy songs
In my ear . . . a sacred place.
And it’s not just Leona’s tamales
That inspire my devotion.
It is the hard, back row bench
In the sanctuary that has cradled
The back pockets of innumerable
Burning souls, lit up by the torches
Life brings to all our little lynchings.
It is the healing dirt
In the hole
In the floor
Of the back room
That I’ve rubbed into these pages
Over the last few lost years . . .
The healing dirt
In the hole
In the floor
That the priest replenishes
From a wheelbarrow every night
After the pilgrims leave . . .
The healing dirt
In the hole
That I have wiped over
My two tattoos and forehead
So many times now before stepping
Back into the sanctuary to pray
That God would deign to lift
The boulders of darkness
Off my shrinking mind . . .
The healing dirt
That has dried hundreds
Of my tears, millions
Of others’ . . . absorbed them
Into its divine drought.

-Nathan Brown, from Karma Krisis

Am sitting here on the cabin porch in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo’s watching a storm paint pink and purple brushstrokes on the broad Rio Grande valley in the distance. As is typical during the monsoon season in the Southwest the storm will quickly march up the canyon in my direction and then unload a brief torrent of cool rain on this parched piece of earth where even the commonplace is beautiful and surreal.

We are returning tomorrow morning so I have one last night to reflect on this dream. It is always difficult to leave, because it’s so vivid in my mind, having learned quite a bit about the archaeology of the place. This tints and contextualizes the today of Spanish, Native American and Anglo New Mexican culture with two thousand years of history and prehistory. So when I look out upon this broad, ancient river valley; when I walk the crowded and festive streets of the Santa Fe plaza; when I sit in the rear pew of the Santuario de Chimayo watching sick and suffering pilgrims praying to be cured . . . the past is just as alive as the present which is just fine by me.

Shrine at Chimayo

Santuario de Chimayo

Walk up any dry arroyo and you’ll find broken shards of millennium-old black on white pottery, or maybe a chipped stone tool, lying next to a rusty Coors beer can. I like to think of time as a river . . . flooding and receding, depositing new dust, meandering, carving new channels and cut banks . . . over vast time vs. a Greenwich Mean nano clock.

It is also difficult to leave because the heat in Oklahoma is mighty this time of year. And the drive back through the vast, flat, monotonous sea of the Texas Panhandle is a mild mental torture unless you are a seasoned Buddhist with a penchant for meditating away such things. So I like to break it up a bit with a stop at Starbucks and Barnes and Noble in Amarillo and then Shamrock, Texas. Shamrock (yes their mascot is a green leprechaun) is a charming little town on the original Route 66 and is pretty much as it was back when Steinbeck’s Jodes drove through there in their jalopy during the Great Depression.

along Rt. 66 in Shamrock, Texas

I bought another silver and turquoise lucky ring from a shop near the plaza that sells antique pawned jewelry. This one was made in the ‘50s and has little raccoon paw imprints which I thought whimsical. Now no matter the color of the sky (a rich cerulean or a light summer sky blue) I’ll be wearing a ring to hold up to the sky for a mental calibration. Now I'll have a little luck on both hands as I grip the handlebars tightly while flying down the highway of my life on a motorcycle.

This morning I came upon some indeterminate birds as I was driving down the highway towards the turquoise mine at Cerrillos. I slowed from 70 to 60 and I’ll be damn they stayed with me for a mile or so until I climbed out of the valley. And then they were gone. With left hand on steering wheel I grabbed my pen and notebook and wrote: “just saw tiny miracle (or perhaps desert mirage) . . . tiny birds flying 60 into a head wind . . . could this be?”

On a recent walk on the trail above the campground I had a minor realization that the sound of my old cowboy boots on the gravel path is nearly as appealing as the clabor and crunch of horse hooves on a dirt road.

Of course this is all part of slowing down, of paying attention, as I learn to take the long road on the mental vagabond journey that is my life. At this point it's mostly mental due to family and career obligations but who knows what the future holds.

I went to Chimayo because of a poem. I also had a Leona's green chile chicken tamale because of a poem which was the best I've had since the Sunday church tamales my mother used to make with her friends in 1970s El Paso.

Alas, the blustery wind just blew my beer can off the cooler and the cloud-vape brush strokes are upon me, so it’s time to go inside.