an old writer and his words

  • COYOTE SONG

    Down at the butt end of the arroyo is a pond, an aneurysm in the stream that runs down from the mountains for better than a month each spring. The twisted, gnarled mesquite cluster around it, like children gazing at a corpse in utter fascination who dare not approach lest it become real and touch…

    Lou Faber

  • MESA

    This night in cold moonlight earth rises up clouds float down ghosts walk the margin. Old ones sing           now shall be then older ones still sing           then shall be once to wolf and coyote. This season of north winds suns heat barren spirits rise up…

    Lou Faber

  • HOW IT IS

      I came down out of these mountains once, emerged from clouds that built, blackened the sky, bleached and were gone, I slid on snow pack, I came down into the sage and piñon, lit my fires and purified myself. I ran with jackrabbits, imagined bears were coyote, coyotes cats that might curl in sleep…

    Lou Faber

  • CHINDI

    They come down from the hills long after the sun retreats beyond Tres Piedras. In the moonless sky they creep around the pinyon, nestle the sage that blankets the mesa, stare at the scattered homes that dot the half-frozen soil. They are orange flames compressed inside orbs paired, they approach here one set, there another.…

    Lou Faber

  • THE MESA, MIDNIGHT

    The coyotes come down from the Sandia Hills onto the mesa.  They are not spirits.  They are not totems.  They are not tricksters.  They are hungry: for a jackrabbit, for a bird, for a small dog wandering too far from a half-lit earthship.  They smell the sage, its faint odor carried on the night breeze. …

    Lou Faber