200 New Mexico Poems

200 New Mexico Poems: 100 Poems Celebrating the Past, 100 More for the Future, is a dynamic celebration of New Mexico’s centennial through poetry. Its mission is to promote a broader understanding of the state’s unusual beauty and delicate ecology as well as foster a greater awareness of its distinct blend of cultural influences. Above all, the project shows that New Mexico’s enchantment is derived from its people, its stories and literature, and the aesthetics of its environment.

Since its inception, 200 New Mexico Poems has received positive reception and encouragement from people all over the United States. The quantity, quality, and uniqueness of submissions represented are outstanding and represent a wide and varied perspective of the state, which is not limited to residents of the region. New Mexico is often little understood by those who have never visited it and is likewise loved by many who have ventured even briefly across its borders. This collection provides the country, even the world, with a stunning multifaceted and layered interpretation of the state of New Mexico.

Featured readers include these contributing poets: Mary Dudley, Gayle Lauradunn, Jamie Figueroa, Pamela Yenser, Kelly Yenser, John Macker, Katherine DeBlassie, Janet Eigner, Kimberly Mathes, Kayce Verde, Susan Gardner, H. Marie Aragón, Katherine Seluja, Roy Beckemeyer, Michelle Holland, Georgia Santa Maria, Joanne Bodin, Karin Bradbery, Linda Monacelli-Johnson and more!

A defeated soldier, any war, returns not as himself
lurches from sleep, nightmares swooping in and out
like vultures, sniffing and tugging at the ravaged
shattered soul that sags under the death of others — comrades
those he’s been taught to kill in order to protect.
All instinct for life or thought sucked away by this top-brass irony
human compassion blown away with these cynical lessons.
He clenches to stay afloat like a half-starved polar bear
on his calved and melting ice-flow.

the pine tree. I hiked the Santa Fe Southern rail
where it showed cleanly as any saint

its attribute, a vulture’s engorged beak.
Pinon-perched or swooping the currents

she’d likely tracked the bonbon
among this Eldorado Easter morning’s

hard-boiled chits of rebirth
blown-clean and faux.

Rising out from the sand, her wings sang wind
beak clasped around the burning egg.

The raven carried fire’s shine
its infinitely mirrored tunneling

a meaning I couldn’t ken
an unfolding

soon to be unleashed on Los Alamos
after the Lab’s prescribed burn.

—

Eigner’s  Cornstalk Mother, Pudding House, precedes the forthcoming, What Lasts is the Breath, Black Swan Editions. Also: Adobe Walls,Blue Mesa Review, Earthships, Echoes,Hawaii Review, Manzanita, Mudfish, Natural Bridge, NM Poetry Review,  Poets Against the War, Sagarin Review,  Daily Bleed, Poetry Foundation, SFLiterary Review, www.eignerdanceswithwords.com (poetry & dance).

Here’s a fine poem about family love and care by Janet Eigner, who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. You can feel that blessing touch the crown of your head, can’t you?

Isaac’s Blessing

When Isaac, a small, freckled boy
approaching seven, visits us for Family Camp,
playing pirate with his rubber sword,

sometimes he slumps in grief,
trudging along, his sacrifice and small violin
in hand, his palm over his chest,

saying, Mother is here
in my heart. Before he leaves for home,
we ask if he’d like a Jewish blessing.

Our grandson’s handsome face ignites;
he chirps a rousing, yes, for a long life.
We unfold the prayer shawl,

its Hebrew letters silvering the spring light,
hold the white tallis above his head,
recite the blessing in its ancient language

and then the English, adding, for a long life.
Isaac complains, the tallis didn’t
touch his head, so he didn’t feel the blessing.

We lower its silken ceiling
to graze his dark hair,
repeat the prayer.

 
Notes

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Janet Eigner, whose most recent book of poetry is What Lasts is the Breath, Black Swan Editions, 2012. Reprinted from Cornstalk Mother, Pudding House Publications, 2009, by permission of Janet Eigner and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.