John Hicks
John Hicks is a New Mexico poet working on his first book. His poetry has been published by: Valparaiso Poetry Review, I-70 Review, Poetica, Blue Nib, Verse-Virtual, and others. He writes in the thin mountain air of the southern Rockies.
Mysteries by John Hicks
I didn’t start writing until I retired in my sixties. I keep note cards on what catches my eye or ear, and much of it finds its way into my work. I do a brain dump onto a yellow pad, type it into Word, then work at making sense of it. Takes about two weeks. Then I bury it on my desk to age. Since my wife, Tolly’s death in 2023, I am more reflective; pay more attention to the human condition, and of course grief. Hard to part with fifty-two years. Been reading a lot of Jane Hirschfield and Barbara Crooker lately—and Shakespeare’s sonnets.
We have wild horses in the hills and arroyos around us in New Mexico. This photo was taken from my front garden maybe four years ago. The mare with the colt is from a small band that likes to come here to show off their foals. The horse with the blonde mane was born two years before the photo. The sand behind them is where they like to take dust baths. The fence across the road is the neighbor’s, not an animal enclosure.
As to these poems, in 2016 we finally committed to a move to New Mexico to help Tolly’s art career. (Yes, right after the election.) I’ve been described as a poet of place—you can see why. This place even brought back the memory of camping with Dad when I was in high school. There’s a lot in the southwest that’s mysterious— a bit of it is here.
To Know Romance” is unpublished. It’s a favorite of mine and will be in my Bangkok manuscript when I send it out for a second round of publishers.
Dry Camp relates an experience on the last day of camping with Dad in northern Mexico. There’s no photo that goes with this; I’d left my Brownie at home. Funny thing about the two domes: about twenty years later I was at Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona. On a clear day from a high point on the post, I could see the two domes across the border.
You Leave Tomorrow is about my back porch. My daughter was preparing to leave for her home in Texas. Tolly and I liked to watch sunset here—something Megan and I do now. The sunset photo (with a bit of moon) was taken from my back garden looking across the Rio Grande toward Cabezon—which is out of sight to the left. (Cabezon is a butte that tops the horizon south of the Jemez Mountains. I’m sending you a picture of it.) We used to love this time of day. I’ve started reading a book about clouds, but as Duke Ellington said, “…once you analyze the flower, you have no more flower.”
Standing Still at Night is an experience Tolly and I had several years ago. I’d been looking at a book of Remington night paintings and said, “Let’s go outside to see what we can hear.” I have no night photos.
for now is what we have is a grief poem using notes about living here, the wind; the beauty.
This is “the next tunnel” in the poem about the overnight sleeper from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Off to the right and out of frame is, “a diorama of small bridges crossing ravines; terraced fields /
and forests gauzed by smoke from breakfast fires.”
To Know Romance
At the end of monsoon season,
take the sleeper overnight,
north from Bangkok to Chiang Mai,
and the next night, further north
by car to a mountain village
where lantern lights warm the dark.
As your train leaves the capital, you’ll cross flooded rice fields
dotted with palm leaf shelters and seamed with wide canals.
Yes, there’s romance in the way late sun comes to you,
the yellow glow off water lighting your compartment, and
the romance of departure in leaving for a place you’ve never been.
In the dining car, where at first you stand waiting
to be seated, look over open spots next to other passengers,
as click of rails through the floor builds anticipation.
You’ll share a table with strangers:
possibly a young couple from Switzerland on holiday;
or a Brit going to his consulate in Chiang Mai;
or a Chinese silk buyer from Singapore.
Romance wants mystery, and the best are of
people you’ll never meet again. Tonight
you’ll watch the sun sink to a whisper, and
Somerset Maugham-like, that will lead to tales
of sunsets in other places—a hotel veranda in Port Said,
perhaps a driftwood fire on the beach at Wang Gaew,
or a mountain town in Sardinia. Long after dinner,
when conversation lulls, someone will observe
that lights and railway crossings are further apart now,
the countryside too dark to see. It’s then you’ll find
the metronomic click beneath your feet carries sleep,
drawing you down the now-dimmed corridor
to your compartment and the faint light
of a crescent moon reflecting from those fields.
You’ll leave the blind open, but as you sleep,
the train will begin its ascent.
You’ll wake in a world of small hillside farms:
a diorama of small bridges crossing ravines; terraced fields
and forests gauzed by smoke from breakfast fires. And
as people go about morning chores, you may see
their water buffalo feeding on rice straw, or a boar
rooting beneath trees. As you approach the next tunnel,
someone will look up and wave at the train before you vanish
and, like being at the rail of a cruise ship departing port,
you’ll wave back.
After taking your room in Chiang Mai,
ask the concierge to arrange a driver for the evening.
Spend the day walking around the old city. The wall
and moat no longer keep away outsiders.
At dusk, have your driver take you to a village
where youths dance barefoot on the teak floor
of night’s pavilion; where light sarongs and
jasmine-fixed hair mix with white shirts, khaki pants.
Young men and women dance apart here,
postures erect as though holding up tradition.
Music is from a khaen, its pulsing beat set by an elder.
His wife keeps time with a ching.
They grew up in this village; as children, they
splashed in monsoon puddles, rode water buffalo,
went to the village school, worked their family farms.
That’s forgotten tonight.
Here, there’s no soft suss of skin on skin.
Romance lives in averted eyes—eyes that rise
for quick looks—then slip away behind a smile
light as feathers dropped into the space of longing.
And when the music ends, they drift back to families:
young women together; young men together;
a bit of banter between the groups; teasing and
modest laughter as one couple falls behind the others,
their crescent moon catching on jasmine and white shirt.
Dry Camp
Sonora Desert, México.
Only wind sound. Still
a day from San Diego.
No hurry. Darkness
edging in under gray sky,
so Dad turns off Federal Highway 2
looking for a campsite.
The track fades at a flat spot
between two domes
where someone gave up moving
stones off the sand to make a road.
No tire marks. Dry silence.
Not so much as a vulture.
Volcanic debris field.
Rocks shoulder to shoulder,
a badly laid floor. Fire-hardened
clink when moved. Easier
to empty the station wagon
than move enough rocks
for sleeping bags.
And we don’t know
what hunts here at night.
No fire. No wood.
Wind presses into our eardrums;
suppresses conversation,
tugs at hair, chapped skin.
My collar turns up,
taps against my cheek.
Bologna sandwiches by flashlight.
Water from the Lister bag hanging
on the side mirror. We crawl into the back,
close the tailgate.
I wake in unexpected light.
Waxing moon above one of the domes.
Not silver. Not silken.
Sharp points.
Shadowed stones
freeze in their march
toward the car.
I fumble for my glasses.
Photo of a sunset near Mustang Mesa. I took it from the driveway. It’s a good example of how, when the sun is still below the horizon, the near clouds have yet to color—bit of a metaphor.
You Leave Tomorrow
I love desert pools
where sunset holds them
in a huddle of boulders
while waning light
holds off the stars,
how they lay a silver wash
over shadow.
Here: while waxing moon
rests her slender elbow
on the sill of twilight,
leans out to look
beyond horizon
at light’s last hum
sinking into earth,
sit with me and watch—
our faces tingling
of today’s sun,
lips cracked,
sand in shoes—
and share this
short suspense of time.
Not speaking is
the secret of exquisite sharing.
But each perfection
desires the next—
like drawing in a string.
Frayed darkness
lies after beauty.
Standing Still at Night
Went outside to look at the stars tonight.
Longer we waited, more we saw.
Picked out planets; constellations I can’t name yet. East,
the moon coming up stood our shadows on the wall,
the wall of the house we’ve chosen in these late years.
Across the creek a coyote serenade—variety in their voices.
A train’s diesel horn sounded down near the Rio Grande.
Coyotes stopped—as though to listen. Maybe respect.
Out where the road ends—movement in the dead tree.
Nature’s query: an owl, branch shadow across its face.
A Remington night painting.
Stillness and darkness: eyelids of sight.
for now is what we have
when wind takes
its sound abrupt
as turning off TV
we discover it
in shoulders neck skull
like crouching memory
the bitter cup
we sweeten knowing
its dregs rise into sleep
our helpless time
sit beside me a bit
in the light before sunset
its yellow glow
softening the adobe wall
for moon’s willow silent
meditation
for now is what we have
when wind takes
its sound abrupt
as turning off TV
we discover it
in shoulders neck skull
like crouching memory
the bitter cup
we sweeten knowing
its dregs rise into sleep
our helpless time
sit beside me a bit
in the light before sunset
its yellow glow
softening the adobe wall
for moon’s willow silent
meditation
Dry Camp was published by Verse-Virtual
Standing Still at Night was published by Bangor Literary Journal
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