Days of work, days of our faithful crew preparing ground, pulling mesquites, tilling, planting seeds of rye and wheat and barley and oats, days of sowing come to fulfillment and now for the careful and tedious watering that must follow. Now begin other days, Days of the Dead, for los difuntos who are to be invited to come again to us for a moment and take part in life with us lest we forget them, or what might be even worse on our part, forget that we will be them …

The air and scene at sunset keep well the celebration: colorful and arresting, and as do these Dias de los Muertos, also whispering of continuous change and of how the impermanence of all things is crucial to the going forward of life itself. The Galiuros become dark lavender and lead, under sky of coral and rose, the Great Cliffs across our rio a shadowed, dusky pink. Cold air creeps down the valley floor, and quietly warns the promised change to another half of the year is indeed here. Days are growing short, the ending of light keeps me from doing last chores and all along the road on the way home the nightbirds sit–Poorwills. They do not want to rise before the truck and my headlights, I barely miss plastering one or another of them. They are incredibly numerous, and I listen for them later from the bed in a new, for-now room of massively thick walls and large windows that look out on wide, level pastures and the tall edge of the cold bosque; but no Poorwills call, none announce the arrival tomorrow of los angelitos … […]