New Mexico Mercury

Ojo Caliente: Metamorphoses

1.
The summer has been shattering.
Too much pressure and heat
change the nature of stone.
For this, we walk a dry path
under the spiraled flight of two eagles
disappearing into blue.

2.
The lightness of letting go is good to sink into.
Golden and afloat, leaves drift, sonorous
in their descent.  We pass ancient villages,
small mounds along the stony path. Peaks
blue in the distance, shimmer under snow...

Resolana - A book review

What we can all learn from the concept, history and practice of collective wisdom in Northern New Mexico.

El Morro: Crossroads of Cultures

Water, historic inscriptions and a geological landscape as diverse as the travelers who left their mark at this hidden New Mexico gem.

Paolo Soleri Amphitheater—monument to a dream

A writer's name appears on the cover of his novel. A painter signs his canvas. A playwright is credited on the program. A star's name adorns a marquee. But what of an architect?

His creation obscures rather than announces him. He lives and works in the shadows of his buildings, which are named for their location, function or owner, not their creator.

However, there are two famous exceptions: the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater in Santa Fe...

Mr. Sheinberg’s Opus

Lessons about teaching from one of New Mexico's best after 37 years with Albuquerque Public Schools.

Weekly Poetry: Officer Smith

What I wish I would have said to the soldier this morning as we stared each other down for a three second eternity in the *Smith’s parking lot (AKA “Officer Smith” poem)

I wonder
if this is what it feels like
standing on the other end
of your rifle
or are your eyes always that big
and soft
would you take offense?
if I said
that you are the only part
of that uniform
that makes me proud to be an American...

Salinas Pueblo Missions: A Lesson in Resistance

Margaret Randall explores the architectural remnants of imposed culture.

Believing in human potential - An interview with Ian Tregillis

Ian Tregillis represents two sides of New Mexico’s collective brainpower: the sciences and the arts. By day, he works at Los Alamos National Laboratory. By night—and on weekends and days off—he writes sharp trope-busting fiction. The ink is still cooling on the final volume of his Milkweed Triptych, Necessary Evil.

Is the series science fiction, or is it fantasy? Ian blends the two genres as artfully as he does physics and creativity. Through the expanded parameters of these genres, the trilogy pokes and prods at the very human issues and choices that face us today. The writing is far smarter than the dust jacket would have you believe, and the entire series bolsters New Mexico’s literary cred.

The last poet standing

In Amiri Baraka’s review of Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry, I was struck by not only the vitriol, but how he was making a similar argument that I had made a few years ago during my review of In Company: An Anthology of New Mexico Poets After 1960.  Lacking the vitriol, I took the editors to task for trying to be inclusive but missing what was happening outside the Academy...

Weekly Poem: When Will the Next Chance Be?

-written in response to Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Patio Door with Green Leaf”

There are doors
we never see.
Just this morning
I failed to find
the door that would have led me
to a deeper understanding of your heart...