Victor Higgins, Pablita Passes (Walking Rain), circa 1916-1917, oil on canvas, 39 3/4 x 42 5/8 in. Collection of the New Mexico Museum of Art. Gift of Robert L.B. Tobin, 1992 (1992.6.1). Photo by Blair Clark.
New Mexico Museum of Art (Santa Fe, NM).
Youth Category Winner
"The Sky Doesn't Leave When It Rains" by Amelia Martinez
The sky doesn't leave when it rains
Certain parts only blossom into passing clouds
Cottonwood fluff that fills arid skies with water
Which folds the fading light into arcs of color
Above the clouds, blue tumbles out of the sky
Leaving everything above a certain height
A brilliant gold, then a pale yellow
On the ground, an azure that pools in mountains' shadows
Lungs smile at the petrichor and cooling air
Streaks of virga fall over in the wind
The world hardly notices; to it, the clouds pass in the blink of an eye
Over a century later, I still watch the rain walk by
Youth Category Honorable Mention
"A Million Little Tears" by Jenna Chavez
A fall of rain can change a place,
I think as the droplets unify on my window.
The once mighty sky has a somber face,
The bashful sun is approaching, she carries my shadow.
The vigorous ground is blessed with showers,
The overcast is left without the rain, forlorn are the clouds.
The glistening tears decorate the sagebrush and desert flowers,
Oh how the heavens can weep so loud.
But through the haze the pastels approached,
The arched hue is its own prize,
Reminds one of flowers before they are poached,
The array of colors wipe one's eyes.
And to the sobbing she wishes goodbye,
The people gather, what a joyous acquainting!
Though this museum dries my tears, I'm a lonely guy,
And this is just a painting.
Adult Category Winner
"Pablita Passes" by Andrea Watson
now
women in raven mantillas gather at noon
near blue-frame adobes of heat-dried brick
above them the sky is a funnel
of hallowed rain tinged with rainbow hope
blessing of clouds from the Sangre de Cristos
black-robed men help each to walk with words
past the gate, toward the lane, that leads them
to the old camposanto—its locked cerquitas
wired once in old wicker, stakes born in stream
bottom or splash-stone—hold village history
each wife-mother caresses her wooden marker
lip-reads words such as murió el dia or memoria
kisses her offering—cross, star, heart, dove,
crown of roses—pray for her madrecita maria
we come to honor our daughter, she of the angels
under rain-star-of-day, laden with wild lilies
they remember their child's smiling eyes, tiny
hands, sweetness enfolding each day of her life
now
among these gardens of the dead, may her name
be benediction in lightning-on-silver slivers of God.
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