Autumn In New Mexico Poem by Bea Early

Aspen grove: lemon yellow, neon bright with the sun coming through from the west, trunks stacked like soldiers, olive drab in the shade, white as sailors in the sun.

Sky: clear dry blue, backdropp for leaves quaking in the autumn wind, leaves making sounds like a soft tambourine, leaves shimmering like gold for Danai, falling onto receptive earth.

Mountains: deep almost black green with veins of pure gold across the Pecos River Canyon, layers of mountains fade to sky blue with hundreds, maybe thousands of miles of air between us and the infinite horizon, end of the earth.

Meadows: grass, pale ocher spread out from the dusty skyline trail. We hear the whistling of elk, or the elk horn of a hunter in the distance.

Hawk circles and swoops, screeches, flutters, rises again, lands in a scraggy pine. A few yards down the trail we find his prey, paralyzed rabbit, dropped, glassy eyed, still.

Heaven is here, incarnate on this autumn Sunday afternoon. We soar with the birds on the wind-voice of Spirit, incense of Balsam Fir, and prayer of awe.