Tag Archives: New Mexico

SHEEP IN THE NIGHT

It was in the old Taos Hotel in New Mexico. I had just spent
the night there on my way back from the Light Institute in
Santa Fe, and picked up a book in their little reading room.
It contained this wonderful description.

A poet is something strange and apart, a favourite of the gods, who have bestowed on him an extreme sensitiveness and sensibility,
like open doors and windows, to subtle and delicate impressions that but bruise themselves against other men’s walls; these he captures ad coaxes to sing to him, and intoxicated by the beauty of their melodies builds for them a golden cage and feeds them on honey from the sweetest flowers in his garden: till they in their happiness become so musical, fancying themselves in heaven , that Jove confers immortality on them, and swinging in their golden cages they sing sweetly forever, lifting up the hearts of men in every clime and generation.

As I read in the lobby a lady sat down opposite me in a comfortable old sofa, about four feet away across a gently rugged coffee table.

I had heard the desk clerk greet her as she entered and ask her how the writing was going. We smiled at each other as she sat down. There was a warmth and a recognition in the smile and a knowing that we would each have liked to say something, but we didn’t.

I really would have liked to share the paragraph with her,
but I didn’t.

Later I passed her and a companion having lunch and we again shared the , “Hi, old friend I’ve know forever,” smiles, but didn’t speak

A couple of hours later I was sprinting across the street on the way back to the hotel when a car stopped to let me cross in front of it. It was her again. This time we both laughed and smiled and went our separate ways.

Maybe we were laughing at fate and it’s three good tries, and
our ability to ignore them all, or the lack of courage that had
allowed us to pass – like two sheeps in the night