SANTA FE FALL AND FOOTHILLS
-for Dorothy and Devey
I.
Intense blue sky
museum-quality cotton clouds
custom-ordered
bright sun on yellow-turned cottonwoods
shined brilliance
nearbypinons and outcrop formations
stand relief
in additional dimension
pumpkins, Day of the Dead murals
backdrop of mountains
ski runs soon to be populated
II.
Fine fall evening
snacks, then a light dinner
at twilight, patio fire
in the chiminea
Flames flick up
pick up speed to full-bore,
darkness descends
and temperatures drop
The heavens a nighttime sky
so full of stars
they bump into one another
Sparks lick a black sky
shade into stars,
then back down to wherever
we started in the first place
Richard Dixon is a long-time transplant from the coal mines of southwestern Pennsylvania who lives in Oklahoma City. A retired high-school special education teacher and tennis coach, he works part-time at a municipal tennis center, where he is known to string a mean racquet.
He has had poems and essays published in Crosstimbers, Westview, Uncle Walt’s Corner of The Long Islander, the 2012 Texas Poetry Calendar, as well as numerous anthologies, including the two Woody Guthrie compilations Travelin' Music (2011) and Elegant Rage (2012). He has been a featured reader at Full Circle Bookstore in OKC, the Benedict Street Marketplace in Shawnee and the Norman Performance Center at the Depot.
He came to writing by way of a dairy farm.