On Capulin Mountain

O Capulin! My Capulin!

From your precious heights I see

Three little volcanoes,

Erupted long ago,

Worn down by the ages of wind, water, and grazing

Animals.

O Capulin, I see inside you,

A small lake, scattered cinderstones,

And in my mind’s eye, caverns of petrified horror:

Stalactites and stalagmites of insect burrows,

Eaten out from the inside a million years after erupting.

A metamorphic mess.

I see steam rising, O Capulin,

From my own arms

In the cold desert air.

Creatures a mile away can smell me.

All the mosquitoes in New Mexico are not half so far away.

I see the black red stones pushed aside

By green chutes and stems.

Yellow, orange, blue, and violet

Delicate petals (tiny craters)

Reach toward the burning sun.

I see my own flesh, grizzly pink and glistening, sticky-hot.

The cattle with nothing much to graze leave steaming floes on the lava floes:

Mock miniatures of their scenery

Dotted on the dry land.

It’s so hot and cold here that I can see the temperatures, O Capulin-

I see them hovering midair.