an old writer and his words

  • TRICKSTER

    He imagines what it might be like to come down out of the foothills and roam the mesa, unseen unless he wishes, a complete freedom. And even if he chooses to be seen, he can take whatever shape he wishes, and they would see him only as he chose, for only as long as he…

    Lou Faber

  • ÁŁTSÉ HASHKÉ (THE TRICKSTER)

    The wind takes up voice as it caresses these mountains, it’s song a lullaby to the coyotes staring at the waning moon. When night grows darkest, they join in the song, a spirit kirtan they have practiced for centuries. Men stare nervously on the mesa at the stars providing faint light, the moon wrapping herself…

    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

  • ON THE MESA

    I sit outside, on the mesa, having watched the mauve, fuchsia and coral sky finally concede to night. The two orange orbs sit twenty yards away, staring back and in this moment coyote and I have known each other for moments, for generations, and we are content. Coyote tells me he was once an elder living…

    Lou Faber

  • SENSING NIGHT

    “Turn on the light so I can hear you,” she says, and I reach for the switch across the room. “Please whisper,” I respond “and I may be able to see my way to the window.” I draw up the shade and in the dim glow of the night’s light I feel the braying of…

    Lou Faber

  • KNOWING

    She wants to know if I could be an animal which would I choose. Part of me wants to answer panther – sleek, black, catlike eyes glowing in the night – but never coyote, crawling out of the hills in search of rabbits darting through the sage, never the trickster. I am an animal, I…

    Lou Faber

  • TAOS EVENING

    On the mesa between El Prado and Tres Piedras after the sun has been swallowed by  the mountains, to the east a fire burns. Countless stars stare down on the shivering sage. The scorpion lunges for the distant hill. The fire grows behind the mountain, the orange disk rises slowly. The smallest stars flee Luna’s…

    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