Meeting Benches World art in all forms
EVENING IN NEW MEXICO – Poetry by Andrew Downing
Far off the Rio Grande crawls, a silver serpent in the sand. And sweetly, softly, slowly falls the shade of twilight on the land. The mockingbird, that all the day has piped, entangling note with note, in merry song, and roundelay, has quelled the lyrics in his throat. In meditation, buried all, three philosophic burros wait, beside a dun, adobe wall, the opening of the master’s gate. A corsair hawk is sailing low, and lazily, his flight unreeled in widening spirals, wavering so, across the green alfalfa field. A purple mantle rolls, and spreads from distant foothills deepening down, across the dry arroya beds, and over all the drowsy town. So softly shadow blends with shade, so stealthily the darkness wins, we scarcely see the daylight fade, we scarcely know the night begins. The sky, rose-tinted in the west, is blue and cloudless everywhere. One white star tips a mountain crest, and sparkles like a jewel there.
THE DESERT HAS ONE GOD – Poetry by Louise Driscoll
The desert has one god, the Great Lord Sun. Death is his servant, as the jackals know that follow where the caravans dare go, with obscene rites to claim what death has won. The desert asks no grace and offers none, indifferent to withhold or to bestow, a yellow sea that has no ebb nor flow, where only light is ended or begun. No one has ever heard the desert speak. The ocean has a voice and the winds seek, to win some answer to the word they bring. The hungry jackal on his lonely way, beholds the desert prostrate, worshipping, but never yet has heard the desert pray.
BEAUTIFUL DREAM – Poetry by Clara Marcelle Farrar Greene
Beautiful dream, can I awake, and from the fond illusion part? Can I the spell of sweetness break, that now is lying on my heart? Waking from thee is but to weep, bind me, O beautiful dream, asleep! Linger, oh stay in thy beauty with me, hush my heart from its waking pain. Bring back the tenderness that can be mine but in visions of sleep again. Wake not my sorrow, linger with me! Linger, O beautiful dream, with me!
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Earth-Poems-New-Mexico/dp/1163928070
