By Susan Hutchinson

I. Old Town, New Mexico 

Riddle a small Southwest town with sin and shame 
Scatter remnants of anger, abuse, and addiction 
The Seasoning a bitter aftertaste
Served on the souls of young men, wives, and children
Once innocent
This is Our story
To reckon with
As we unveil the past
Our sin and shame
And patently pretend it is 
Someone other’s 
Fiction.

II. For The Wounded Child

They call it “Goodness of Fit”
And when fit cuts the flow
Severs the sanctity
Plagues the persona    
Who sees the strangle of the garment   
Who rushes in to loosen the seams
Find new thread
Stitch up the tears 
The tears
And clothe the child in embrace.
I ask who
And where 
Is the 
Seamstress Savior?
 
III. For The Sad and Afflicted

She carries a yoke laden with  
the legacy of her story
dictated by the wounds of the deepest part 
her fearlessness living under a layer
of broken truth, precious shelter
ready to jump the hoop
breach the span
bury the pain
and sing with the nightingale.
          

IV. Time in Eden 

The fruit ripens and the children play
In gardens where the ring of windchimes 
And the glimmer of joy and glee
Infuse the soil with hope and faith
As water and sun drench the skin of
Cucumber and plum
And children that play
In gardens where love grows
Its deep and abiding roots.   


V. For Daughters Lost To Their Fathers

Beauty has its price to pay
In a world hungry for the artifice of consummate spill
And the tender whisper of affection is drowned
In fathoms and fathoms of promise, pledge
Deragged and dredged in betrayal
The crush of estrangement 
Disaffection displacing the radiance of grace
And goddess
Finding the way back is the work of 
Artist, alchemist, and archangel.


VI. For The Homeless Poet Prisoner

a home 
a place 
a roof  
a den
his pen poised to 
shed the skin
share the sentence
praise the parole
and send prayer to a future
where he has found 
his den
his roof   
his place
his home.  


VII. For The Sage Poet Muse In Us All

It’s 2 AM, and far from the heartbeat of Sky and Earth, 
The pulse of the Wind.
The words reverberate, sinewed, sheer.
Write from a point of power
About your weaknesses.
Write from your loneliness.
Your structure is nothing more than
An offering of yourself. 
Become more the river than yourself. 
What’s going to trigger your writing?
You want to choose that 
To allow you to write your best. 
Within every truth lies an ultimatum
Go to Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti, Mailer, Levertov
And your world becomes an altar, 
An offering of oneself.
And your indebtedness will be infinite in Thanksgiving and prayer.