Crossing New Mexico with Weldon Kees

after Kees' "Travels in North America"

1. Santa Fe

"The walls are old," he says.

I turn in the plaza and nod to Weldon Kees,

his face as dark as the cool shadows

that surround us, walls keeping him

safe, honoring his silence, though

he comes to me to be led away.

"The mountains out there are not old,"

he claims and slips his hands into his coat.

We cross the street, each Indian blanket

on the ground holding jewelry I would love

to touch, but Kees and the Navajo man

selling his crafts are whispering to the ground.

Kees surprises me by entering the Museum of Arts.

I follow him, the stone floor ringing with

our footsteps, empty arches blending above.

Kees stops and turns to me.

"One can see only so much," he says.

He leads me to the twisted dwarf,

the tangles form of faith and death,

arrows bristling from its muscled body,

a sacrifice of the ugly encased in glass,

Kees staring at the sculpture as if

he knows why we really can't see it.

He points to the deepest arrow

and places a hand on my shoulder.

"When you believe this, you are home,"

he tells me and walks out.

2. Albuquerque

The Sangre de Cristo mountains are old

and he is driving my car to the highest ridge,

the valley below avoiding the bright moon,

the same white light in the bay Kees wanted

to touch before he left.

"Mist and clouds are a lie," he claims.

"Look down there. Men are running away."

He drives slowly to the top and we get out,

the autumn sun burning terraces into scrub

cedars and piñon pines he wrote about

when he crossed here long ago,

standing on the edge of the cliff

as if this is the only way for him to go.

"Look past what you want to see,"

he sighs as the wind takes his slick hair

and makes him into someone

I have seen before, the streets of

Albuquerque down there as dusty

as his closed eyes.

We stand on the edge and I wait

at this elevation with Kees who wrote

that the towns we will not visit are

places where home truly lies.

"I must go," he decides.

"Where to?" I ask.

"Anyplace you haven't seen," he says,

and walks down the mountain.

3. Tyuonyi

Kees and I are happy when the sun

splits the tree for a moment because

yesterday controlled this mountain dawn,

burning mud deeper into the adobe.

Cottonwoods catch fire here, give

the people time to hide inside turtle shells,

though they come out to watch us.

I stop as the drawings come to life

under the arches, symbols familiar

to those who sleep by crossing

the street each night.

As I stare, I realize a man who

diappears wants to understand

and not hide, yet the designs

tempt me to walk in the wrong

direction and leave him behind.

To go farther up would mean

a canyon where I have been.

A dirt street inside another path,

tiny houses falling back,

letting me pass beyond their

locked doors, as if the smoking

windows know where I must go.

When I enter the placita, the old

woman is not there because this

is about bringing Kees back.

The dirt street opens to the last

scorched tree breaking out of walls

to shade what can't be blessed, its

branches confusing until their cracks

enter the ground in search of peace.

4. Santa Maria

Water disappears to settle as clear glass

that contains memories of thirst,

the ancient hole found in the ruins,

Kees' hand keeping the others from skimming

the surface of the still water, reaching

to be alone under the mountain wall,

though eyes that watch have seen this before,

men entering and never coming out.

One hand keeps the other from touching the surface.

Pulling back allows the echo of falling rocks,

the deep swimmer breaking through walls

to emerge on the other side of the well

where the first figures to emerge in centuries are

sitting and rubbing sand over their wet, shivering bodies.

5. Fort Selden

Kees is getting tired in the desert heat

and sits on a historic slab of western settlement,

this old fort a museum where thirsty men

come to drink from the bitter well.

Kees smokes too many cigarettes

and shakes his head at me,

"Look at the moth and the deep iris in your garden

because the equation I found in San Francisco

is an eclipse drawn on paper

by my trembling hands."

He pauses and takes a drag, my head bathed

in sweat and confusion as he coughs this,

"It is too late because jazz has gone away.

I placed a stone deity of a bird next to an eggplant

on my desk, its smooth purple skin as significant

as the gathering of birds in your head,

their chirping coming from sorrow,

even from the bay where I never told a lie,

though the grand steps lead to the burned church

where the musicians used to trace my forehead."

I stare at him and he tosses smoke on the ground

because we are close to home.

6. El Paso

Kees waits at the bus station

in my hometown.

We cannot go farther because

the border here is out there and as violent

as the reasons he disappeared

in San Francisco a long time ago.

I want to tell him who I think he is,

but I grew up here and must hide

how things have really been,

drawing the light off the mountains

as if the doubters of history are simply

starving boys offering to shine Kees'

shoes on the corner of Paisano Street.

My hometown has a bridge,

but Kees won't go near it because

he says to cross it would be

to admit there is something wrong

on the other side of my family's house.

He can never cross because

we have found our way here,

El Paso dreaming its population

of mute men must keep growing

because the border keeps taking

too many of them away.

Kees looks at the bus schedule,

runs out of cigarettes

and everything is closed.

He nods at nothing and waits

on the bench with someone

he swears looks like me.

Source: Beautiful Wall (BOA Editions Ltd., 2015)