Life Against the Heavens

The Lawrence Tree

On Lobo Mountain, north of Taos, we climb to the chapel where Lawrence’s ashes are mixed with the concrete of the shrine, his spirit rising more like the bread he baked than any sudden phoenix. Just knowing he split wood, fed the chickens, and milked the cow those cool August mornings, so far from the wars of thought about him, shines a quiet loneliness into time unfolding before us.

Here, chores finished, he ate with Frieda, walked the trails, and wrote until the long San Cristobal Valley lay stranded under desert stars. At the height of summer we have the place to ourselves, our low voices the only sound between his small adobe shack and the ponderosa pine once painted by Georgia O’Keeffe, who, night after night, stared up through its branches, seeing a life against the heavens.

Garden Quilt

Finding beauty in need, piece by piece, she plants this garden,

giving each bright pattern the sunlight and rain of skill and diligence,

art and purpose, her life like needlework stemming from hardship

turned into soil, from the knowledge that time mulches down

to feed the vision of a daughter who will dig and weed

and cultivate her own fabric of roots— every stitch

holding its ground, taut as the seed her mother had sown.