I sat on the levee of the small ditch behind my parent’s two acre property and watched the tall blades of dry yellow grass bend with the cold January wind as the day dragged itself west, uncovering purple shadows, waking mice, things that eat mice, and opening the darkened sky to view the Milky Way.
Beyond our property was a gated desert where I found decomposing Mexican graphic novels and dirty magazines arranged beside a makeshift bed of cardboard and faded flannel blankets. The camp was tucked underneath gnarled mesquite trees at the base of a a wide crater, hidden by mounds of soft orange dirt. I visited the hideout frequently, mostly to daydream or lay prone on the sandy rim of the crater, waiting for a jackrabbit to cross the sights of my rifle.
Beyond the gated desert was the Rio Grand and past its levee was an old highway, once the main artery to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. A salsa cannery occupied a fraction of the view, its exhaust displaced the clean desert air with the aroma of roasted jalapenos and refried beans. On the northern horizon stood the Organ Mountains of southern New Mexico, painted in purples, blues, magenta, and orange of the day’s last light.
The cold wind burned my cheeks and nostrils while I prayed to the mountains through the tall grass hoping to watch them for a moment longer. I watched clouds build above the range then dissolve into the darkening skies.
I know this place. I sleep here, where jackrabbits scamper and dogs bark at ghosts. I will spend eternity here, watching the mountains.