Honoring Orient Land Trust

Earth's crust waxes thin in our desert,
a skin of hot waters rising, sparse rains
cooling this patchwork of pinon and sage,
pounding forces too star-staged to fight.
And so we roll like morning light,
like dunes, like ant hills, like the waves
of the one-time sea now
disappeared into our aquifer, crystal-centered.

In the silence descending from the Sangres
the rhythms grow obvious
as the petite sunflowers lining our dirt roads.
Anything but blank, our lives
hold down the slim soils, watering
whatever will greenly ascend
to the primal friends who lessen our toil,
illumining our way, nights, days,
pulling radiance through bare twigs for pine nuts
that feed a hundred species.
We serve the recharge—in the swell of sands
we bow to rejuvenation, to the waters
that pool in our foothills
like dew in fern cups,
like tears in a palm.
Raw in wonder, we ask
how to tend the land
with the hoe of listening.

In the silence descending from the Sangres
the rhythms grow clear
as breath—in and out—the same
as Mule Deer, the endangered
Sage Grouse, the bobcat none of us can hear,
the black bear waking hot-breathed from winter.
Vapors swirl our cool mornings,
blessed from below.
Our roots of water grow.
And so our conservation climbs like steam, drifts
like snow to honor the land, the moss rocks
in creeks above us singing
lasting lyrics of a stewardship we mime,
in an immaculate web we must sustain.

"In the Silence Descending, continued with strophe break, page 2.

In the silence descending from the Sangres
the rhythms grow sacred,
our springs healing chaos, the concreteness of grief,
pond pebbles glistening beyond belief, a smoothness
born of eons of the struggles we imbibe
to transform, hard buds
having the courage to bloom.
Finally. The land is quiet, so stilled,
the sky as free. Here we stand
like an ancient tree, arms to the Sun
and roots into what remains unseen.

In the silence descending from the Sangres
we ground the timeless rhythmic ways.

By William Howell based on word pictures, thoughts and impressions shared by staff members Pam Nelson and Dave Beaulieu

Crestone
August,2013