The Sound a Raven Makes
by Sawnie Morris, Michelle Holland, & Catherine Ferguson
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New Mexico Book Award Winner, 2007
A triad of strong women's voices, Sawnie Morris of Taos, Michelle Holland of Chimayo, and Catherine Ferguson of Galisteo are gathered together in one volume. These three poets of rural northern New Mexico share a deep language of landscape with river rapids, a blur of hummingbirds, the lingering scent of woodstoves and the inescapable voice of the raven.
The book functions as three generous chapbooks, a sampling of poetic geographies and styles. Poet Lisa Gill writes in The Rio Grande Sun, "This is the kind of book that takes your head and repositions it on your neck while a trio of women gently whisper in your ear, 'Look, really look at the world around you.' Together these three poets create a veritable manifesto of how spirit inhabits place."
After Having Thought About It for a Long Time
by Sawnie Morris
In the warm springs where they
bathe and float together
her hand accidentally touches
his hand underwater.
His head jerks up in uncertainty
while her face remains nonchalant.
She draws back in a flutter
of sand, though on second thought
what she wants
is to take his hand
in hers, open
his palm to her mouth,
kiss the upturned flesh,
press palms together—
map to inner map, interlocutors
to separate pasts
locked in deaf-mute
languages of distress, frightened
by the sudden explicit gesture,
yet sprung open, exposed,
and imprinted with desire
to touch the beautiful strange forms
that grow from their upturned bodies,
innocent and supple as algae sprung from
alchemy of water, light, stone.
New Dirt Under Cactus Branches
by Michelle Holland
A story began
after the fences were built,
after the Pueblo Revolt,
after the Spanish reconquered
the land where the acequias were dug
by captured Natives under the boots
of Oñate and his conquistadors.
In Chimayó, the story curves around the Rincon De Los Trujillo
where the remnants of sheep ranches
lean their weathered empty beams into cholla
and leave their rusty tin roofs to be swallowed
when the arroyos run.
A long story began when the old families, Vigil and Martinez
abandoned their wool for black tar,
left their sheep and weaving
to learn the profit of despair.
The wars, a world away, saw sons leave,
fields fallow. Drought took the high desert
and the connection of community
with water and earth twisted
to the track of a manufactured
and transitory heaven.
A family at a time turned their backs
on history, and found a new connection
with matches and a spoon
and an open vein.
Another chapter ended this summer
when the dirt road to the BLM fence
just off the rincon between abandoned sheep barns
became a noontime parking lot,
a hidden place to shoot up
for the teen-age girl
and her mustached boyfriend.
Their blue Honda Civic,
the windshield spider-webbed
across the driver's side,
parked on the flat brown dirt bordered
by steep hills of juniper, prickly pear and chamisa.
As the sun sets red against the barrancas
the raven pair that nest above the fence line
circle and swoop on a swell of air
over the tissues, aluminum foil,
abandoned syringes and Tecaté cans.
They watched the road becomes path a couple follows.
Against the dusky slant of light,
I see the girl from the Honda Civic
carries a cloth-wrapped bundle close.
They stoop, their backs curved to the ground,
the years on their young shoulders.
Their gestures are small and urging
as he drags a red-handled shovel,
they follow a coyote trail
and disappear into an arroyo.
Later I traced their path
and found a plush white unicorn,
a perimeter of votive candles and mica-flaked rocks.
A bouquet of plastic red roses
rested on top of prickly pear pads and cholla branches,
protection against coyote and stray dogs.
I leaned in to listen to the night sounds,
but no prayer arrived to mark the heavy summer darkness
or the small patch of new dirt.
Two Ravens
by Catherine Ferguson
I said to myself let's go along the walls and the wind.
I said are you a woman or a man? When you do this
to me you are a woman and the wings end.
When you are a man you are dark and the tree
forgets its shadow when it sees you. I said to myself
let's fly over these antelope.
When you do this to me you are a man and
the sky holds me up. The roofs reflect your shoulders.
I said to myself let's follow the river.
Am I alone or are you teaching me
with your breath? Is the shine on your
wing grazing my tail feathers and when I turn
do your eyes swallow my heart?
Let's glide smoothly along this current
of wind, I'm upside down and the sun rains heat
on my belly and my back reflects the earth below.
I asked are you a bird or a woman? You are a bird
and your beak catches the water in my hair.
You are a woman and the sound of your cry
makes me hungry. You are a man and I am lonely.
You are a raven and I am the sky.
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