Posts The Woman in the Hills

The Woman in the Hills

by treenaorchard

The sierra is skin and seeds  
It grows as you see it   
Pink and curved like a wet flower 
Bigger than life 

Through the garden and the apricot trees 
Water hose coiled like a grey snake 
We walk in a group of five 
Ingesting everything you shed 

With Maria Chabot 
The architect who became friend 
The crumbling pueblo two centuries old  
Was reborn  

It began in letters between NYC and Abiquiu 
Two women writing the future 
That came up that towering orange hill  
Glass, wood, heaps of earth 

You lived here  
For the rest of time 
Under the glistening cobalt sky 
With the chow chows  

And the 1200 collected stones  
Smooth little children 
Playing in waterless ponds 
Between the bleached animal bones 

And the central plazuela  
Which you painted over and over 
Often adding details that weren’t there 
But it looked how you wanted it to 

Remember, it snows here 
When asked to draw the winter road 
You sketched the half curve of the moon 
Its silvery tail guiding us 

Five travellers at the Ghost Ranch 
A Church 
We feel you 
The woman in the hills 

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Dr. Treena Orchard

London, Ontario
Canada


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