The trip endures (for Hilary Glenn Bartlett)

The trip endures. The road we take extends to the end of the world. At dawn we drive across La Veta Pass where you see the cloud ''like a boa embracing the mountain.'' We stop on the high plateau where the antelope romp. They are forever romping. Friend, Dear Friend of my Mother, No one sees as you the landscape that surrounds us. We watch the light change on the mountains as the car slowly climbs to 9400 feet and then moves downward into the soft mist, the boa of your mother sucked when a child, down into Fort Garland where we breakfast and the waitress forgets our eggs. After breakfast we turn South into New Mexico. Gardens give way to desert of sagebrush with chamisa and sunflowers growing by the road. In the distance mountains and mesas rise. ''Caroline'' you say ''had a ranch around here. I like the landscape of New Mexico most of all.'' In the car moving along we glory in its midst. Such nourishment endures. We are forever crossing the Pass we struggle toward. We never cease to descend the road through the heart of New Mexico into the treeless pink sandstone where erosion exposes the strata of ages. Dear Friend, your delight in the landscape as we drive along, enters my soul.