Diminishing Echo

People say there’s a smell that comes before 
a rain. I’ve smelled it, too. 

Before time engraved on mountainsides. 
Before petroglyphs, 
or Butterfield Stagecoach, 
before Mexico or the USA. 

Dust and warm dust. One learns not to touch 
or pet or pick. I live
two miles from the Deming tracks. 

The tiny red pepper I grew
didn’t burn my mouth 
until I bit into the yellow seed. 

Soggy thundered air tries to cool us. 
Nightshade, dark green summer night. 
Spadefoot toad neighbors in warm, sticky mud. 

Many of our people have lived 
long, their eyes tell you.

How the train persists. 

Interstate 10 rolls town, dead skunks 
in the middle 
of the pavement. 

Clouds hearing silence 
touch space. The mountain changes the afternoon.

Finally the sound, blue to purple. 
Mourning doves on every branch. 

^{*This collective poem was assembled from responses by residents in the city of Deming, NM, and is part of the New Mexico Epic Poem Project.}