All the grace

I am from desert dust

Antlions sat just beneath the surface

Adobe, dirt floors and wood burning stove

Trailer houses inside and outside of trailer parks

Tall trees with fat limbs where my mama sat to read books and eat tomatoes from her mother’s garden

Willows weeping, still as day

Fast running water racing past grandpa’s house

Birdsong mornings and painted sunsets setting 

Arroyos stretching into the valley like roots reaching

Fig trees swallowed by June bugs, shimmering green and black

A lone saguaro in a sea of mesquite and prickly pear

Mountains and pine and Rabitbush

Chain link fences and barbed wire

Glass bottles of coke filled with peanuts

Mariachis and Rock and Roll, twang and old gospels

Winds sweeping and earth baking 

The white sun and the dry air

Young mother with long blue black hair

Brown and skinny father gone before I knew him

Posole and sopapillas, red chili and venison

Enchiladas stacked with a fried egg, yoke running

Tamales, tortillas, roasted piñón, beans made with bacon

Beautiful faces with eyes and wrinkles that smile