I found it strange to photograph
Chimayo's painted gravesites: stopped parades
of glass-eyed dolls, persistent silken blooms
in pall from unrelenting sun. The plots,
not flat, but mounds; impedimenta stuck
with pinwheels flashing codes, urgent missives
from the missed. To call it art implies
intention, propaganda bent
on finding viewers to convince: in death
are flashbulbs, prisms. At home,
the driveway pebbles turned, through rain
and oxidation, my pickup's rusty blue;
the bedroom floor, a pamphleteer
in hues: the Zuni prayer mat's village street,
with roofs of modest brownish-pink,
the Oriental rug with stems that curve
like boulevards. Outside, the dark
promotes the stars. What we author makes
no claim on homage; our devices
crack against nature's artless weight.
