New Mexico Mercury

Weekly Poem: Peace on Earth

He took a frayed hat from his head,
And “Peace on Earth” was what he said.
“A morsel out of what you’re worth,
And there we have it: Peace on Earth.
Not much, although a little more
Than what there was on earth before
I’m as you see, I’m Ichabod,—
But never mind the ways I’ve trod;
I’m sober now, so help me God”...

Provincial Matters, 12-23-2013

V.B. Price's weekly collection of appreciations and observations.

Friday Voyage: Lessons from Uruguay Part 1

A South American country's lucid vision of education and healthcare.

Weekly Poem: I am the faceless man

I am the faceless man
The empty hand
You passed
And left to stand
A stranger on the corner
The friend in the mirror
That you didn’t find
A reflection of your hidden mind...

The women behind a great man who changed New Mexico

The logic would seem irrefutable: The atomic age made modern New Mexico; Robert Oppenheimer was the man most responsible for making the atomic bomb; three women in his life helped shape the man; these women are important for us today to understand.

This logic led me to An Atomic Love Story: The Extraordinary Women in Robert Oppenheimer’s Life by Shirley Streshinsky and Patricia Klaus, which was published in September...

El Machete: Nelson Mandela

El Machete: Nelson Mandela

Weekly Poem: We Considered Ourselves

The towers on Sandia Crest transmit
through sunset    in some other home, Smokey
Bear is dead like a pop song
on a distant radio      I keep
toying with the dials   flipping the brights in a code
here no one remembers     the first fire,
distant suns or one close star...

Friday Voyage: Death Valley

Is Death Valley the landscape of our future?  Margaret Randall contemplates this notion as she explores the unique environments of Death Valley and Joshua Tree. 

Following dreams - to the end of the road

How far should you follow your dreams? When do dreams become obsessions? Obsessions become delusions? Delusions become tragedy?

These are the questions I pondered as I left a Saturday evening performance of a new play, Up (The Man in the Flying Chair) at the Mother Road Theater in Albuquerque...

Weekly Poem: Tonight the Moon is Mexican

and so is the wind
and so are the oleanders
the wind is bothering.
The porch light is no longer

anything but Mexican.
It’s true; tonight
is full of this miracle.
The river

is finally Mexican and...