What remains (my response to photos of Mesilla)

What remains

Walk along these cobbles

drag yourself from

point to point in this well lit fort

know you are a transient

here for the now

and your now is simply

perception’s point -

look close

search for the air

breathed by

Pat Garrett

or Billy the Kid

or the Apache

whose land

is whose land

is whom

what remains

these stones

these brush strokes

to be filled in by tourist

or

I went to the plaza to see

but no one remembers -

the signs tell me things

but they are out of time

Things that reflect light

are left over

scattered

I do not know what these spaces are made of

What materials go into a place

this place

What refuse was buried here

before our truth is scratched

What can be seen clearly in the shot

is what was never there

it is our time,

haunted by your idea of image

conflated with

my need

to ascribe

meaning.

floydd michael elliott