ECOVIEW
No.5
Southwest
Not your usual
neighborhood
art show!!
carl lahser
ECOVIEW
No.5
Southwest
Not your usual
neighborhood
art show!!
carl lahser

Copyright © 1996 by Carl Lahser
All rights reserved. If you must copy any part of this work please give the author appropriate credit.
Published by:
Pretense Press
6102 Royal Breeze
San Antonio, TX 78239
Other books by the author:
Teacher, Leaves Don’t Change Color
Forty Years of Fishing
Weather watching
Chasing the Enterprise
Searching for the Phantom Crown
Cross-section through a Rainbow
Backdoor to the Yukon
Ecoview 1 - Not Your Usual Neighborhood
Ecoview 2 - Texas
Ecoview 3 - D.C.
Ecoview 4 - St Louis to Minneapolis
Ecoview 5 - Southwest
Ecoview 6 - Green Things
Summers End
Hey Momma, When we Goin Again
Bigfooting Around
Under the Southern Cross (Under Clouds)
Alamo Road
Texas to Alaska
Mr. Cuul in Yucatan
Thinking of Flying
Do Bears do it in the Woods
Traffic Games
All titles are available from Pretense Press. Booksellers
are encouraged to write for seller’s information.
Printed in USA.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1
New Mexico
Albuquerque Sunrise 3
Rinconada Canyon 4
Albuquerque Blowing Dust 5 Albuquerque Sunline 6 Funny Little Snow Storm 7 Sandia Tramway in Spring 8
A Little Bit of the Road to Oz 9
Arizona
Heat 10
Whiteflies 10
A Lonely Palm 10
A Cactus Wren 11
Saguaros 12
Shelter Caves 11 Petroglyphs 12
Sunrise on Luke AFB 14 Sensations 15
Arizona Sunset 15
California
Starbucks 17
SoCal Beaches 18
San Diego Overview 20
Mesembryanthemun 22
Santa Ysabel 22
Windmills of Palm Springs 23
California Traffic signs 23
L.A. News 24
Leaving California Felling Good 25
ECOVIEW No. 5 contains personal glimpses of New Mexico, Arizona and southern California. These are, in my opinion, sensitive, matter-of-fact and, possibly, controversial verbal pictures of cities and resources in the southwestern US. Feel free to disagree. Even I change my mind occasionally on rereading these sketches.
New Mexico
Albuquerque Sunrise
Sunrise was not all that impressive this day
In a windless, cloudless sky
the east turned white
and scattered creosote bushes
grew from the shadows of the night.
A blinding white sun leaped
over the Sandia Mountains.
A breeze stirred
blowing away the night’s cool.
RINCONADA CANYON
West of the Rio Grande River
Below Mesa Prieta
Rinconada Canyon slices
into the volcanic escarpment.
Steep slopes where rest
thousands of boulders
of black-faced vesicular basalt
Black boulders with
a white star!
a spiral!
a bird facing east!
Hundreds of Pueblo petrogylphs.
Ancient graffiti
mixed with recent graffiti
of the interlopers unknown
but now immortal
under the desert sun.
ALBUQUERQUE’S BLOWING DUST
To the southwest
the mountains disappear in a cloud of tan.
Plastic bags and tumbleweeds
hang on dusty eddy currents
above the rolling cloud of sand.
There is a moment of panic
as the wind grabs your clothes
before you can turn and beat you
with tumbleweeds and biting sand.
In seconds the dust and wind pass over us
double-timing it towards the north and east.
Albuquerque Sunline
At six AM the sky is blue but the Valley is in shadow
The sun hits the touches the western rim
and the sunline marches East along I-40
towards the Rio Grande.
Tops of downtown high rises glow like Easter eggs
above the trees still in shadow.
The sunline walks East on old route 66.
Shadows shrink as the sun crawls down
the walls of tall buildings to empty parking lots.
As I drive west on Central
the shadow of my car is a block long
then a hundred yards long
then a hundred feet long
under a clear blue sky.
Funny Little Snow Storm
To the east under sparkling blue sky
the Sandia Mountains were crowned
with snow. Across the Rio Grande
virga danced with blue sky
as we wound our way into town.
When we left the hotel for lunch
large fluffy flakes were drifting down
The blue sky was now milky white
and little ice pellets littered the ground.
In just a few minutes the west side
of parked cars, cactus and Blue Spruce trees
were painted with white but starting to melt
as the thermometer sat on forty degrees.
The snow was run out of town by noon
and clear weather returned one more time.
Muddy slush was thrown onto windshields
and streets steamed as the water sublimed.
The wind came up and it sure felt cold
then the dust began to blow
and by the end of the day the was no trace
of this funny little storm of snow.
Sandia Tramway in Spring
The Sandia Peak Tram's two gondolas
can carry you from summer to winter
from desert to arctic
in 20 minutes, in about 3 miles, up 3000 feet
We left the Rio Grande flood plain behind
and entered the Sonoran desert
then ventured into the cooler foothills
of the Sandia Mountains
Up and out over Domingo Baca Canyon
Over cactus, tasajillo and sage brush
Over sandstone boulders on rocky ridges
Walls and pinnacles of tilted stone
Piñon pines stuck into the canyon walls
A light dusting of snow bleaching everything.
Clouds of blowing snow and wind gusts
swing the gondola
Breaks in the clouds reveal
snow covered branching canyons and Christmasy flocked trees
We slow and dock
and cross an icy deck at 10,000 feet
Thermometer says a brisk 10 degrees cold
Scenic vistas lie hidden somewhere
beyond a hundred feet of visibility
I'm not about to ride the chair lift down today
down to the desert and shirt-sleeve weather.
A Little Bit of the Road to Oz
Albuquerque sits on an historic intersection,
Route 66 crosses the Rio Grande River.
The highway was important in its day
but nothing lasts forever.
US Highway 66 now runs parallel to I-40
into town then it becomes Central Ave.
Some historic motels and restaurants remain
but a helping of nostalgia is the most they have.
Many cars on the way
to points west stopped to stay
a mile high deferring the desert trip
to Dream City - L.A.
Route 66,
a modern horizontal petroglyph.
Arizona
Heat
Remember getting into a car
on a hot afternoon
or opening a oven door
to check baking bread?
That was Gila Bend
just stepping outside
into 117 degree heat.
Whiteflies
Whiteflies swarming
drifting horizontally
in the still air
like snowflakes
in a blizzard.
A Lonely Palm
A mature California Palm
stands stark
against a clear blue morning sky
leaves hanging limply
in the still morning chill.
Wren Nest
A Cactus Wren
A dozen large saguaro cactus
are available
but a cactus wren
sat singing
atop a tall power pole
claiming all he could see.
Saguaros
West and south of Phoenix
stand thousands
of ribbed desert sentries,
arms raised like traffic cops.
Guarding the Sonoran Desert.
Feeding bats and moths pollen
Housing woodpeckers and owls
Protecting nests of doves.
Shelter Caves
Shallow caves,
created by lava flows or
carved by wind-blown sand,
housed of wandering groups
of several tribes
over ten thousand years.
Their pottery and tools survive.
Petroglyphs
Petroglyphs
pecked in vesicular basalt,
tell tales,
left messages,
gave directions,
expressed emotions,
praised the spirits,
honored their dead.
Sunrise on Luke AFB
A white sun vaults full-grown over the horizon
like pickup headlights over a rise in the road.
Chili mesquite, palo verde and prickly pear
cast long grotesque shadows.
A Crissal Thrasher explodes off of its nest
hidden in a clump of cholla
then sits in a mesquite
flicking its tail
scolding the sun.
A pair of doves sits cooing
in a bare desert willow.
Fresh fox scat steams
in the morning cool.
An F-16 clears its engines for take-off
minutes too late to hang up the sun.
The roar wakens sleepy heads
and sings the night crew to sleep.
Luke's day is off to a roaring start.
Sensations
It is an awesome feeling
to walk rocky trails,
to sit in caves that protected man
from this same hot sun
when this land was pinon forest,
the sun that dried and warmed the land
forming this desert.
Arizona Sunset
A sliver moon hangs two hours behind the sun
almost lost in thin flamingo clouds
Two doves fly south below the moon.
California
Starbucks
Cute little coffee bar without poetry
What would Ginsberg think?
Like a ham sandwich without rye
It’s enough to drive a poet to drink.
Pacific Beach
SoCal Beaches
Rough beaches along US 101
are now hidden in state parks
along the Coast Highway
The water is still cold and
the currents are still bad
The dedicated surfers still have to sing
still jump fences to get wet
Car tops sport racks
for surf boards
encased in protective covers
Los Angeles Skyline
No more
hundred pound
12 foot
mahogany surf boards
or balsa and fiberglass boards
or bogie boards
or flying saucers.
Light boards made of fiberglass
with two keels
and bungee cords around the ankle.
Looks a lot easier and safer.
*****
San Diego Overview
San Diego had only 570,000 people in 1958.
It has grown 300,000 in 36 years
and the County population doubled.
Once it was a Navy town
with half a hundred bars along Broadway
now gone with urban renewal.
Fleet landing was where Navy wives
could be picked up and got in the sack
before the liberty boat
had husbands and lovers to their ships.
It's now a respectable park.
The Coronado ferry is long gone
replaced with a high curving bridge.
The Spanish and Mexican heritage
has been replaced by yuppieism
a tourist mecca with parking meters
and entrance fees into our missions.
San Diego has blossomed
with palm and bougainvilla and pelagorium.
Fire resistant Ice-plant has invaded
highway right-of-ways and hillsides
greening the area.
It’s still cool and damp
and the fog hangs over Point Loma,
but the good life as I remember
is gone, gone with numerosity,
drowned in a sea of people,
lost in a bevy,
adrift in a cloud,
an unorganized hive of vehicles,
a maze of freeways.
The surf is changeless
but the call of the beach
is less compelling
muffled and filtered through
a fine mesh of bureaucracy
parking meters and pollution.
Piers and groins and breakwaters
stop the sand migration
and dump it into the unrecoverable depths.
Thermal pollution of power plants,
freshwater pollution by storm drains,
and untreated sewage
gives swimmers the itch and crud.
Overregulated vehicle exhaust
whitens the skies and burns the eyes.
It was not perfect 40 years ago,
but half today's population and regulations
attracted today's population
that is fouling its nest.
MESEMBRYANTHEMUM
California Ice-plant,
this fire resistant succulent
used to be called
Mesembryanthemum
But a botanist looked at the Fig-Marigolds
and decided this musical name
was no longer valid
and changed it to
Cryophytum crystallinum
Pretty but not quite so melodious
Santa Ysabel
Sixteen miles east of Ramona beyond
winding Highway 78's
rocky canyons and bleak hills
live a couple hundred people
in the town of Santa Ysabel.
Mission Santa Ysabel,
a grocery,
a bakery,
a general store and school.
Buffalo T-bone steak was $18 a pound
but the cider was fresh and cold.
Windmills of Palm Springs
Forty years ago Signal Hill
near Long Beach
was scarred and black
from and with pumping oil wells.
Today a hundred hills sprout
giant white three-bladed windmills
taking energy from the wind and sun
All energy is not the same.
California Traffic Sign
I-5 North Use Right Lane
but not at this intersection
where the right lane must turn
and not the next intersection
which goes to I-5 South.
Finally, behind door number three
is the I-5 North ramp.
L.A. News, Thursday May 9
A 71 year old grandmother
holds up a gas station
for money to pay back taxes
A city bus is hijacked
and held hostage for two hours
A celebrity goes berserk
shouting obscenities at traffic
with a loaded gun in his pocket
A battering husband shoots his wife
in front of his son
and is killed by deputies
Weather is smoggy and mild
Pollen is up - Eucalyptus and Avocado
Leaving California Feeling Good
My vacation is over.
My summer is through.
We all grow up and
there is still plenty to do.
Driving to San Diego
to catch a plane
we passed through Camp Pendelton
where Marine Corps reigns
Off the coast were anchored war ships
for games on the beach
to get Marines ready to grasp
whatever we ask them to reach.
On the perimeter road along I-5
raced three Bradley fighting machines.
The lead one carried the stars and stripes
and each had a dozen marines.
I tooted the horn and gave them thumbs up.
Each of them with a full field pack
shouted, "Semper Fi" and saluted
and each of them waved back.
Orgasmic!
Come back anytime!

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