Eliseo's Cabin, Taos Pueblo Poem by John Balaban

Yellow alfalfa banks the rutted lane that winds in under the bedstead gate latched with loops of baling wire.

Horseskulls bleach on fenceposts running down through sagebrush to the cabin snug by the sandy creek.

Pieces of plows hang from the cedars along with barn hinges, tractor chains, and a rusted-out kettle. A buffalo hide

drapes a lodge pole wedged in willows. The cabin's covered in sweetpea vines, blossoms tumbling out bees.

Eliseo has set his cot outside near an iron pot brimming peonies. Lying alone at night, watching stars shake, hearing the creek talk, he remembers before there was a camp

and his father would come here to watch thunderheads collapse on the prairie and drag sweeps of rain across arroyos.

Worried about the old man sleeping on the ground he sawed planks and hauled them up by buckboard rocking to the meadow on wheels that smelled of sage. Now old himself he comes to his cabin to heat chili and bread on the wood stove to sleep by the creek or sit by a spruce whittling birds for grandchildren.

In the dark, he hears his ponies graze across the fern-crowded creek where fireflies flare like memories and his father and grandchildren's voices rise from the cold traveling water.