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.