I
lived in that city for a time in the
high
desert, under the morning shadow
of
Sandia Mountain. I would look out
the
window of my apartment and admire
the
natural wonder of the land and its
stunning
peak which towered over
Albuquerque.
Now,
this was a city of diverse ethnicity
where
poverty, crime and addiction roamed
widely
in the streets, not unlike most
urban
cities of size in this country.
Oh,
but there was Sandia Peak in all its
glory
rising to the East. I often wondered
why
so many inner-city inhabitants had
to
wallow in the pit of misfortune and
pain
in such a beautiful place.
Why
couldn’t they escape the realized
confines
of their homeless despair?
This
wasn’t New York City, after all,
where
skyscrapers and concrete blocked
nature
and tranquility from the helplessly
famished
mind.
Look
out there, it’s Sandia for god’s
sake,
break away from the madness
of
humanity. Set yourself free.
On
a park bench one day I met a man
in
a most downtroden and disheveled
state.
He told me that for some time he
had
been living without means on the
streets
of Albuquerque.
He
sporadically maintained his life on
handouts,
dumpster finds and soup
kitchens
run by local churches and
good-will
charities. He had skin of
weather-beaten
leather, and his face
bore
a deep scaring from broken glass.
Razors
and knife blades wielded
recklessly
by those rag-tag vagabonds
living
on the streets hopeless as he.
Ramon
was his name, he told me.
And
if I could spare some change it
would
be appreciated greatly. So
I
dug deeply into my pocket and
gave
him what I had on me at the
time.
Muchas gracias! He replied.
On
this day at ground level, I realized
that
for Ramon and many others here
on
the streets of Albuquerque that the
beauty
and tranquility of nature, the
splendor
that was Sandia Peak were
no
more than a backdrop for misery,
a
mere scenic illusion in the theater
of
their grim and desperate reality.
Chris
Hanch 9-19-18
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