Santa Fe and Taos, you have sunshine and wind
but you are, nevertheless, dark–
irrefragably dark, and yet who would have you
otherwise?
White reflections from the Palace in Santa Fe
do not balance the dark aura of your hills.
mountains encompass you,
towns of conjecture still unmarred by tourists
and American civilization.
There is a wind blows through your streets,
endlessly;
it is a clean wind but it smells as if it had
been somewhere — there is a pervasion of scents
that remind me
of pinion, smoke of cedar and the night
you first stayed by the coals of a fire
in the cool of night, before you were towns,
Santa Fe and Taos.
Burros
and winding streets reminiscent of the Old World
……………………. and yet Mexicans prattle
in the Legislature
as culpably
as if this were not New Mexico,
Land of blue mountains and wind.
(Norman MacLeod)
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Based on Topics: Night Poems, Fire Poems, Society & Civilization PoemsBased on Keywords: unmarred, reminiscent, mexicans, irrefragably, taos, culpably