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Picking Piñon


Saturday afternoon, having returned home, nothing much pressing to do but lie down on the green sheets in fall heat with the ceiling fan switched on. I reach for a book. Just come from south side of town, El Dorado, where an 80 year old friend read her poems, restless lullabyes, while outside in the half demolished parking lot construction workers hollered. 

 Afterwards three of us pulled off for salad, burger, a potent porter in tall cool glass, and Shaker lemon pie - thin granulated citrus slices hidden in crust thick as the aired out top soil after sporadic monsoon. We talked of the mistakes that poets make.

 Downtown, fiesta. Don Diego, his court, and young unmarried reina cross the plaza. I drive the opposite direction, down Old Las Vegas Highway and spy the old ones, abuelas and their granddaughters pulling dark colored cars off to the side of the road, seeking shade. They exit with weathered sticks and flat, sturdy pillows. Together they will squat to share stories under the scrub as they gather the hard brown kernels, nuts hoarded for cookies and tamales. 

 Groping with tiny, patient fingers into resiny cones or sorting the year's bumper crop from dusty earth floor. Fists full of nuggets that break into slivers - buttery, heavenly little bits, broken with spit between the teeth and the tongue.


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