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By Eve West Bessier

The View From Here

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.

The Sunday Brunch column is on hiatus, making room for The View From Here.

Wishing all of you a healthy and abundant 2025! Happy New Year!



The Reach of Love


Let love show you its reach.

– Stewart S. Warren


How deeply does love reach?

Does it turn into heat
and reach a frozen heart,
thawing all that threatens
to break as ice will break,
turning all into that which flows
as water will flow?

Does it turn into music
and reach a deafened ear,
reminding it to listen
when listening is difficult,
and rendering the reality
of a new harmony?

Does it turn into understanding
and reach all fallible prejudice,
showing the known similar
outweighs the unknown different.

Does it turn into sand
so that outmoded structures
can collapse, hardened hierarchies
crumble in the face of new faces,
those of women, peoples of color
and youth with vibrant destinies?

Does it turn into wind
so that resistance is vanquished
and acquiescence is freedom
to be authentically real,
genuinely able to change
and grow perpetually?

Does it turn into light
and reach beyond
the doors of a closed mind,
opening darkened corners
of thought to alternative vistas
that clear all stagnant pools
of stubborn, self-centered angst?

Does it turn into a promise
that weaves its probability of liberty
between every fear, act of violence,
shout of anger, and gently softens
the fabric of every starched heart
into a potential for humility?

Does it reach deeply enough to
touch us with our own divinity?

Does it reach deeply enough
to heal us with our own
highest consciousness?

Does it reach deeply enough
to create of us an enlightened
race of humans who choose
to live as one species,
one family, one diverse
yet united tribe?

Love reaches as deeply
as we reach for love.



Photo Credit: The Eagle Trees, Eve West Bessier, Copyright 2021

Disclaimer:
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Southwest Word Fiesta™ or its steering committee.

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We respectfully acknowledge that the entirety of southwestern New Mexico is the traditional territory, since time immemorial, of the Chis-Nde, also known as the people of the Chiricahua Apache Nation. The Chiricahua Apache Nation is recognized as a sovereign Native Nation by the United States in the Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Friendship of 1 July 1852 (10 Stat. 979) (Treaty of Santa Fe ratified 23 March 1853 and proclaimed by President Franklin Pierce 25 March 1853).

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Mimbres Press of Western New Mexico University is a traditional academic press that welcomes agented and unagented submissions in the following genres: literary fiction, creative non-fiction, essays, memoir, poetry, children’s books, historical fiction, and academic books. We are particularly interested in academic work and commercial work with a strong social message, including but not limited to works of history, reportage, biography, anthropology, culture, human rights, and the natural world. We will also consider selective works of national and global significance.