Adobe Shacks on the Padilla Place
& the sounds of men talking
through the light of coaloil lanterns:
cottonpickers, collectors of remnants,
those few left who can glean the fields
of high grade cotton, the longer staples
living off what the machine
can't yet do, worn out, only partially aware
because they can't speak English of just how
quickly those fields are closing about them.
My wife and I talk with them, they answer
in courtly tones, the Spanish of the 17th Century
for they are from Mora, gracefully, easily make us
welcome
--while a world spins away
while a dry wind rises
that will blow all our names away
They know. It is she and I
who have forgotten how old
the New Mexican hills and valleys
how darkness comes and goes
but always there are the people, la gente,
the land, la tierra, all anyone need understand.
Keith Wilson
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