I had tucked it away years ago.
It rode with me at the bottom of a packed box resting in the back of a u haul trailer as I weaved in and out of the Chicago traffic to adventures unknown.
“Perhaps it would be the New Mexico high desert….
New Mexico.
The enchanted lady of faded khaki
wrapped with olive and lavender, in stillness, Under a powder blue bonnet,
Warmed by the clear southwestern sun.
Her moods change, as I traveled the winding ribbon.
North to Shiprock darting back and forth,
I moved in and out of the cool shadows of canyons,
Formations rising and falling from the basin floor.
I passed Navajo towns of mud and shanty and weather creased faces.
Beyond the white man's gas and oil rigs,
With racks of pipes waiting to be connected for just one more fill-up.
At last, over the great Rio Grande Gorge cutting deep into the soil,
It was New Mexico, the refuge for all of the bright eyes
Who gave up long ago trying to fit.
It could be Wisconsin….
Where the bite of the north winds is cocooned in laughter, and bratwurst and beer. Where life begins and ends with the cheese heads near the goal post of a Packers game. It could be these gardeners that I serve, with twisted nouns and round bodies and red rose cheeks and seed company baseball caps eager for another color to replace the brown and grey of a Midwest winter
It was to be New England.
Down the narrow roads between rock walls and under blooming overhangs of dogwood and azalea. With towns of tidy white clapboard nestled in the green of fern and wisteria. Where nurserymen tend their plants near the Capes of Cod and islands of Nantucket and the Vineyard. It is a lifetime from my native place to those strange New England voices. It is March and I prepare for the adventure”.
New Mexico.
The enchanted lady of faded khaki
wrapped with olive and lavender, in stillness, Under a powder blue bonnet,
Warmed by the clear southwestern sun.
Her moods change, as I traveled the winding ribbon.
North to Shiprock darting back and forth,
I moved in and out of the cool shadows of canyons,
Formations rising and falling from the basin floor.
I passed Navajo towns of mud and shanty and weather creased faces.
Beyond the white man's gas and oil rigs,
With racks of pipes waiting to be connected for just one more fill-up.
At last, over the great Rio Grande Gorge cutting deep into the soil,
It was New Mexico, the refuge for all of the bright eyes
Who gave up long ago trying to fit.
It could be Wisconsin….
Where the bite of the north winds is cocooned in laughter, and bratwurst and beer. Where life begins and ends with the cheese heads near the goal post of a Packers game. It could be these gardeners that I serve, with twisted nouns and round bodies and red rose cheeks and seed company baseball caps eager for another color to replace the brown and grey of a Midwest winter
It was to be New England.
Down the narrow roads between rock walls and under blooming overhangs of dogwood and azalea. With towns of tidy white clapboard nestled in the green of fern and wisteria. Where nurserymen tend their plants near the Capes of Cod and islands of Nantucket and the Vineyard. It is a lifetime from my native place to those strange New England voices. It is March and I prepare for the adventure”.
Later, it rested opened on me as I sipped fresh squeezed orange juice and watched the sun rise over a Mexico vacation morning and drifted off to sleep. Now, here in my one bedroom shack at the bottom of the searing Texas land, It sat unnoticed on a dusty shelf somewhere between dreams fulfilled and dreams forgotten.
Soon after this quiet rapping of my screen door, I remembered it. I would open the worn brown notebook and move my fingers to those scribbled pages of words and drawings.
She was tall. She was young. Her eyes glistened. Her hot copper red hair spun down her long neck to her shoulders. She was adorned with the confidence of light, of forward reach, of a spirit that moves from the alpha to the omega.
“Mr. Hudson?”, she said quietly and politely, is your name Nick Hudson? I am Sarah Banks, and I have come a long way to find you. It's about a crazy idea that I cannot get out of my head. Can you take some time this morning to help me to put this thing to rest once and for all?”
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