-Volunteer in Service to America-

when the slopped hogs grunt
at five in the morning
and the scent
of atmosphere unsettles
in the thick
fat-cracking bacon

and it’s dark outside

near dark as night

in the state of New Mexico
a square-
shaped dusty planet,
where scorpions roam and cling,

natural here, —

this place where slate-grey
the sun-bleached
skulls of the animals show-up
half-buried in the sand-crags
among the slimwood and soaptree yucca.

and it's commonplace
to see the rattles cut from its snake
resting as a child's toy on the kitchen table

and it won’t make the monthly
mimeographs. 

but in the morning when the flat-
bottomed tub's been prepared,
Trudy from Mack, Colorado steps in,—

two plops from her feet and then

the sound as drenched as falling water.

across the hallway, the kids

are laughing in the early kitchen
in the midst of the stove's fatty crackle
in this place like no other,—
as dry, as drenched, as sleepy and dreadful,
the place like no other
and it's all supposed to be that way.

                                    Jemez Pueblo 1969