During late October
if your truck is tough enough
you can drive the old road
up to where the factory was
(where they would extract wax
from the candelilla plant).
It’s not an easy trek,
past small but steady Fresno Creek
and the ruins of Harve Dodson’s ranch.
You really have to want to go there.
But you go there to hear the voices,
the thing they don’t describe
in the hiking guide.
The other hikers talk about it last
after they tell you to make sure you take
lots of water and some extra food
and good boots and a durable camera
that can take some jolts.
They’ll say, “Oh, by the way…”
and their eyes will look off to the side
like they’re talking to themselves almost
and they’ll mutter how

it’s both mesmerizing and disquieting
to stand by the Glenn Spring cemetery.
It will seem as if there’s an extra
wind there,
like something is moving through
that isn’t rollicking any dust or leaves.
And you’ll think your hiking buddy is
saying something quiet-like and he’ll
think the same thing of you but neither
of your lips are moving and you’ll slowly
come to realize those Mexican bandits
might have taken the folks from the town
but those folks left their voices behind,
permanent things, stained onto the rocks,
like old wax, still telling stories of flames
that used to burn
in this vast and stony darkness.

Poet’s Note:  On a remote dirt road in the Big Bend National Park sits the ruins of a town called Glenn Spring.  On May 5th, 1916 dozens of Mexican bandits raided the town and took hostages.  American troops did cross the border and reclaimed the hostages but the town never recovered.

Again, this morning, I found myself looking up,
peering at the broken branches.
It is a phrase and motif, a state of mind,
I keep returning back to.

A particularly large branch is hung
in the boughs far too high for me to climb.
Here, wrapped in the last few rags of night,
I sit on my deck and drink my coffee
and wait for a big wind
to come through.
It might be days away.

Sometimes I have sat with other poets
who have confessed
they spend entire writing sessions
staring into space waiting for their Muse
to finally get his pipe lit, his coffee made,
his hair brushed just right.

And then, when he does show up,
there’s still no telling if he has brought anything,
or how he is planning to deliver it.

They want him to bring some soothing drink
and a plateful of biscotti.
Those poets want to just have a conversation.
They think the poem is all in the hand-off
of intimate chatter.

When this branch above me falls it is
certainly going to leave a concussive mark.
But the really good ideas always leave a bruise.
Inevitably we are caught by surprise
trying to catch ideas that fall
faster than we can dodge.
Not something served in china cups
accompanied by crumbs.

I sit here, wrapped in the thin blanket of night,
and drink my coffee I have poured myself.

I look up.  
Something awkward, crushing, tearing and lumpy
is slowly falling toward me.
I can hardly wait
for the mark it will leave.