for Don and Pamely Lichty
There is much love that goes wasted on the sides of morning
when "skating in Vermont" means living in the desert
& sitting on top of the world is a delicate song
rocking with the windmill from Jemez to the Sangres
the same old steps again Wisconsin New York Kansas Europe
bobbing with the knocking in groan Tibetan horn wind-
mill burns the Peter Hurd off the canvas morning where
the panorama stares back Sandias in the morning
cobalt blue the haze forever lifted from the eyes as
we walk up the ladder thru adobe built up to the cedar
bedroom out to see the new roof flat black asphalt
mopped under pebbles & the frying pan full of piss
to float eyes out from this top of the mesa
into love that goes wanting in disheveled cities slid
awkward down the pilings of earth twist out
& fold levels fold & geology present Miller's
from Milwaukee or Azusa or Fort Worth sitting
on the mesa tipped in tipped in love gone sliding thru
stuff under tarps woodpiles things live underneath
our pointer after mice birds wind & exotic
religion sides with our insides you connect the landscape
as land forms form out chile & beans with salt pork
pressure cooked stares in the afternoon Die-Hard battery
to work the TV seldom on just looks & doesnt look back
we have filtered out our present built up our logs on
this ship launched out
added special twists & uncorked Tulemare Dew made
Irish coffee & worshipped night in daytime
way way north of Placitas the road turns
around where you live & everything stands
up to lay down before the fire on a clear cool warm
day day New York New York Wisconsin New Mexico
Sunday the new room with cedar ceiling builds
the history building our history the movie finds itself
entrapped in the heart Rebel Without a Cause
stares from the kerosene lamps whose reflectors of glass
are insides of vacuum bottles carefully positing
every step along the way a narrative of where we
stand or sit build a new door out of
split wood held together by dust off the palms
& the working sweat of the morning beer
take it easy & care no care until caring everything
is love in air creaking under the depression out there
mesas build on mesas flow out from volcanic core
in the frozen warmed present November
I come to sing Woody Guthrie Hank Williams Kell D. Robertson
if I had a guitar I couldnt sing a song
but talk in the round of four-fold friends comes
singing around the corner. There are no corners here
where in the dust lit up Joel plays & the dogs romp
& play on this mesa in this mesa in our hearts we flow
from the center of the fire.
/25Nov74
larry goodell / placitas, new mexico
(the photographs are from the Open Space north of Placitas in a mesa area much like
where the poem took place . . . houses have built up around where our dear friends,
the Lichtys, lived in the early 70's).
This poem is a testament to a wonderful place and wonderful friends . . .
larry goodell
