Observations and Insights
on the Nature of Things

This monthly column features brief essays, poems, poetic micro essays and photography by Eve West Bessier, Poet Laureate Emerita of Silver City and Grant County, New Mexico. Look for a new post on the first of the month.

Fluent – Decode – Retain

Oh, to be fluent
in the language
of ordinary hope,

adept at decoding
the compounded interest
of unremarkable moments.

Easy enough to grasp
the billboard-sized missives
that arrive by way of life’s
outsized experiences.

But how to comprehend
the mysticism of the mundane?

It is not the immediate
experience that molds us,
it is what we retain,

the resonance that remains
long after the day
is merely history.



Photo credit: “Meditative Moment,” pen and ink drawing, Eve West Bessier

“Fluent – Decode – Retain” first appeared in the author’s collection, “Hope is Audacious,” 2026

The post The View From Here appeared first on Southwest Word Fiesta™.

Observations and Insights
on the Nature of Things

This monthly column features brief essays, poems, poetic micro essays and photography by Eve West Bessier, Poet Laureate Emerita of Silver City and Grant County, New Mexico. Look for a new post on the first of the month.

Hope is Audacious

Hope is a choice
made in a dark moment
to open the blinds
so that possibilities
are made visible.

Hope is not wishful thinking,
or whimsy or self-indulgence.

It is a blueprint for the future
that requires sustained
visionary optimism.

At times, hope is a hummingbird
in a wild storm, tenaciously
staying the course.

It is line nine of a sonnet
that shifts the kaleidoscopic view
into an unexpected new formation.

Hope turns the hourglass
upside down, just before
all the sand runs out.

It gives us more time
to find answers,
to take action.

Hope is not a reaction
to feeling caught
in a dead-end alley.

It is the key
to the hidden gate
we didn’t see
was there all along.

Hope is audacious.



Photo credit: Stock


This poem is from Eve’s new book, “Hope is Audacious.”
Available at the link below.

https://a.co/d/0alts4Q3

The post The View From Here appeared first on Southwest Word Fiesta™.

Observations and Insights
on the Nature of Things

This monthly column features brief essays, poems, poetic micro essays and photography by Eve West Bessier, Poet Laureate Emerita of Silver City and Grant County, New Mexico. Look for a new post on the first of the month.

Its Own Brand of Grace

Inspired by, “We’re Gettin’ Western Now Boys,” a drawing by New Mexico artist, Robert Shufelt

The hair on the horse’s head,
so finely rendered in graphite
you can feel the texture,
rough and prickly at its edges.

The cattleman’s mustached face,
filled with rugged bravado,
dark hat brim shielding his eyes
from the harsh New Mexico sun.

The rope in his left hand
hanging slack, but at the ready
to lasso the horns or head
of a straying Hereford.

His right arm reaches upward
in a gesture of exhilaration.
His mouth is opened slightly,
the sound of a crisp “Yip!”
escaping his chapped lips.

We do not hear it with our ears,
yet the illustration brings to us
the thunderous stampede
of a thousand heavy hooves
on the packed dry dust
of the far-eastern prairie.

What lies just beyond
the edge of the rendering
is nonetheless present.

It’s a roundup of our history
extending westward across
cholla-dotted landscapes
to the flanks of the Sacramento
and ragged Sandia mountains.

A roundup of outposts
from earlier centuries
along historic trade routes,
the Santa Fe and Butterfield Trails,
the notorious Jornada del Muerto.

A roundup surging south
along the banks of the Rio Grande,
passing ancient adobe pueblos
where sacred chants and dances
still fill the earthen bu-ping-geh.

The monsoon river flows down
through fertile valleys to reservoirs,
to the old town of Hatch,
where the best chilies are grown.

Our state is a roundup of renowned
artistry in graphically designed pottery,
modern statuary, woven tapestry
and abstract landscapes on canvas.

A roundup of energy technologies.
Farms of solar panels and wind turbines,
oil fields and massive mining industries.

A roundup of unbridled wildness
in the Aldo Leopold and Gila,
where serene silence reigns
over Ponderosa pine, piñon
and alligator juniper.

A roundup of open range lands,
pecan orchards and high mesas
where robust radio telescopes
probe the known cosmos.

Yes, it’s a roundup,
but we know New Mexico
cannot be corralled
into any singular description.

It holds its own brand of grace,
a buoyancy of pure light,
a furious firing of the imagination
that overwhelming vastness elicits,

a unique perspective on the divine
that four horizons stretching
into copious emptiness inspires.

New Mexico is forever free-ranging!




Photo credit: “We’re Gettin’ Western Now Boys,” a drawing by New Mexico artist, Robert Shufelt

The post The View From Here appeared first on Southwest Word Fiesta™.

Observations and Insights
on the Nature of Things

This monthly column features brief essays, poems, poetic micro essays and photography by Eve West Bessier, Poet Laureate Emerita of Silver City and Grant County, New Mexico. Look for a new post on the first of the month.

Cedar – Habitat – Sabbatical

Let me take a sabbatical,

seek out a wild habitat
for my too-tamed mind.

Find a secret hide-away

with ample elevation,
a wide-angled view.

Add a few cedar
and juniper trees,
an aspen grove
on a high slope.

Provide a sanctuary
where sunlight plays
on granite and teases
the emerald skin of lakes.

Gently place me
where I can breathe
thinner air,
bathe my lungs
in alpine coolness,

remember
from where I came,

remember
my own name,

remember
the nature
of the golden ratio,

the shape
of ancient change.



Photo credit: Eve West Bessier, “Mountain Zen” 2016

The post The View From Here appeared first on Southwest Word Fiesta™.

Observations and Insights
on the Nature of Things

This monthly column features brief essays, poems, poetic micro essays and photography by Eve West Bessier, Poet Laureate Emerita of Silver City and Grant County, New Mexico. Look for a new post every first Friday.

Freshwater – Past – Continuity

There’s a freshwater lake
beneath
White Sands National Park.

Or perhaps,
it is ancient saline water
from the Cretaceous Era
when a sea flowed
into and created this basin.

There is continuity
from the prehistoric.

I have taken
three-hundred photos
from a plastic bin
containing random
Kodak packets
and placed the images
in chronological order

into a big red
orange album.

Sunrise.
Sunset.

Multiplied by
ten-thousand.

I can now see
that there is continuity
in my own flowing

from past stories
to present realities.

Freshwater
salinated
by generous tears.

A basin filled
with a myriad
memories flowing
hot and cold.

The good
and the sad
combined.

My own
subterranean
reservoir.

My own
anthropological
diary.


Photo credit: “Beneath the Surface,” Eve West Bessier, 2025

The post The View From Here appeared first on Southwest Word Fiesta™.

Observations and Insights
on the Nature of Things

This monthly column features brief essays, poems, poetic micro essays and photography by Eve West Bessier, Poet Laureate Emerita of Silver City and Grant County, New Mexico. Look for a new post every first Friday.

Language Moves Through My Life Like a Dance

Inspired by Rita Dove
Poet Laureate Emerita of the United States

Language moves through my life
like a dance.

Not always with elegance and poise.

Often with inelegant sound and fury.
With bleeding knees, stunted dreams.

With a heart filled with clawing
alliterations. Old crows cackling
their raucous caws.

At times, I find words and meaning
entangled in an intimate
Argentine tango.
Legs entwined,
chests leaning in to touch
flushed cheeks and brush
against your tears
mixed with my own,
the way words allow us
to own ourselves
at the roots of meaning.

Sometimes a Viennese waltz
careens me around and around,
no words to capture
such crazed elation,
yet words are revealed.

Today, language moves
like a slow rumba in the arms
of long memory,
filled with a sweet
melancholy passion
invisible to the world.

Closely held,
protected from scrutiny,
smoothly caressing
the ground
with the naked soles
of my feet.


Photo credit: Stock

The post The View From Here appeared first on Southwest Word Fiesta™.

Observations and Insights
on the Nature of Things

This monthly column features brief essays, poems, poetic micro essays and photography
by Eve West Bessier, Poet Laureate Emerita of Silver City and Grant County, New Mexico.

Look for a new post every first Friday.

A poem in the lapsing twelve days of Christmas

Gladsome – Nomad – Decode

Gladsome tidings
are the domain of Herald Angels.

In biblical times,
these denizens of light abounded.

Today, good news is rarely shared,
let alone heralded from above.

The recipients of those biblical
tidings of great joy were shepherds
keeping watch over their flocks.

Nomads sleeping in remote fields.

Did they have a full grasp
of the angelic message?

A way to decode
its elevated meaning?

Unlikely,
yet they paid attention,
recognized the import
without its interpretation.

How would such a message
be received today?

Would the Herald Angels
have Instagram accounts?

Would they even trend?

There’s something to be said
for the silent night of a quiet meadow,
the Milky Way discernible,
no light pollution to obscure
potential angelic revelations,

which may be taking place
at this very moment.

Who would know of it?

I’m going outside now
to check on the heavens.



Photo Credit: Stock image

The post The View From Here appeared first on Southwest Word Fiesta™.

Observations and Insights
on the Nature of Things

This monthly column features brief essays, poems, poetic micro essays and photography
by Eve West Bessier, Poet Laureate Emerita of Silver City and Grant County, New Mexico.

Look for a new post every first Friday.

Retain – Discover – Service

There is, I believe,
a profound difference
between receiving and taking.

The first being an act of humility,
the second an expression of greed.

So we might be wise to feel averse
to taking, but would be wiser still
to learn how to gracefully receive.

In physical law energy is never lost.

The giving and receiving retain
in theory a balanced pairing.

In all fairness, it seems to me,
some people are always giving
while others are always taking.

Few of us are adept
at the art of true receiving.

The more equitable
and elegant exchange
will be achieved

when we discover
how each of us
in service to the other

retains joy in giving
and gratitude in receiving.



Photo Credit: “Christmas Cactus Bloom,”
Eve West Bessier, 2020

The post The View From Here appeared first on Southwest Word Fiesta™.

Observations and Insights
on the Nature of Things

This monthly column features brief essays, poems, poetic micro essays and photography
by Eve West Bessier, Poet Laureate Emerita of Silver City and Grant County, New Mexico.

Look for a new post every first Friday.

Carpe Diem Leniter

Seize the Day Gently

Soon it will arrive,

that sweet moment
of clarity,

just before the twin spotted
spiny lizard sprints,

or just after,

his tail disappearing
under Apache grass.

I will witness it,
that distilled moment.

I will let it pass,
without residual
intention to do anything

in particular.

This morning,
the lizard avoids

the roadrunner’s beak

a small gift
in a hard-natured world.



Photo credit: Stock

The post The View From Here appeared first on Southwest Word Fiesta™.

Observations and Insights
on the Nature of Things

This monthly column features brief essays, poems, poetic micro essays and photography
by Eve West Bessier, Poet Laureate Emerita of Silver City and Grant County, New Mexico.

Look for a new post every first Friday.

Cockeyed Optimist

When a glass is filled halfway, call me a “glass half full” kind of person. I prefer optimism over the alternative.

I’m not sure, however, if the well-known analogy is accurately illustrative of optimism. In my opinion, it doesn’t take optimism to see a glass filled halfway with water as being half full. Nor does it take pessimism to call it half empty. Both statements simply address the physical presence of water inside the glass in different ways. And then, there is the quirky issue of the shape of the glass. A glass shaped like a bell (reference my photo above) will look less than half filled even when it’s more than half filled with water by volume.

Yes, I realize the analogy relates to the perspective one takes on the volume of water. Still, I would suggest that true optimism comes into play when the glass is obviously less than half full, or even close to empty, and we have enough faith to believe it can be made full and enough courage to fill it!

There are those who firmly believe that firmly believing in something will bring it into material reality. There is certainly support in a plethora of spiritual teachings for this kind of optimism. Here are a couple of examples that come to my mind.

“As ye have faith, so shall your powers and blessings be.”
Abdu’l-Bahá, Final Address to the First Group of Pilgrims, 1898. Baha’i Faith.

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.”
The New Testament, Mark 11:24.

While I ascribe to finding the silver lining in any challenging situation and believe that my reaction to that situation can greatly change the outcome of my experience, I still have some doubt that mere belief can create material actuality. Then again, even scientifically objective physicists are discovering that the mere act of observing subatomic particles changes their behavior. Perhaps mind over matter is more than wishful thinking.

Finding the silver lining is certainly not a new adage. The 1919 song, “Look for the Silver Lining,” by Jerome Kern with lyrics by B. G. DeSylva, encourages us to maintain hope and optimism, despite all darkness.

“A heart full of joy and gladness will always banish sadness and strife.
So always look for the silver lining and try to find the sunny side of life.”

In these trying times, those lyrics may sound Pollyanna. There are all too many obstructions to the light at this juncture of our collective history. Yet, surely the light shines through somewhere. In the beauty of a landscape. In the generosity of a kind gesture. In the willingness of multitudes to stand for justice. In the crystalline reflections of genuine love and open-hearted compassion that break through the threatening storms.

So, go ahead and call me a “cockeyed optimist,” to quote another time-honored tune from the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific. I’m going to hang my hat on my faith in the general good. I invite you to join me. May our collective faith bring that good into the foreground. May our collective optimism despite the current heavy gloom, make the silver lining shine and fill the glass to the top!

Photo credit: “Optimism,” Eve West Bessier, 2025

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