The car comes out of its wild spin and stalls
on the shoulder, at a perfect right angle
to the Interstate. Then a silence so abrupt
it sounds like a shriek.
Through a scrim of falling snow I see
a graveyard with a caved-in fence,
wooden crosses all akimbo.
A huddle of shacks, remnants of a stagecoach stop
once a rough day’s ride from Santa Fe
offering a hot meal, a bed,
a team of fresh horses in the morning.
Behind me, big rigs grind up the hill.
My car shudders in their wake.
Tranquility descends like a cloak.
I want to sit here forever
and gaze at the hushed fields
rolling west toward the Jemez range
a Sisley snowscape, charcoal and white.
Grey Sparrow Journal 