Santa Fe, December 2022
The sage brush dances
in the desert breeze,
a pale lavender band of sky
dissolves into dunes,
gypsum born of wind
a soft landing into the
vast open
where arid peaks rise for
a golden kiss,
sun etched shadows
of afternoon light
on adobe walls,
a juniper branch
made visible
everything is made of
Earth here
even starlings
perch magnetic
on trees
a pulsing mass
murmuring
collective ascension
in desert dust
ancestors move unseen
wheeling celestial
through the rustling of the quaking aspen,
the swaying of the limber pine
and the sage brush dancing
there is nothing to leave
behind here,
except sun bleached animal
bones,
sheltering tuff,
and cracked clay
on what abounds infinite
and free
living things,
we tread lightly here
Effie Pasagiannis is a lawyer and writer based in NYC. Her poems have appeared in a number of notable journals and anthologies, including Stanford University’s Mantis Press (Poetry & Protest Issue, April 2019). Effie’s first poetry collection Anagnorisis was published by Dancing Girl Press (2020). She just completed two poetry chapbooks — Our Perfect Offering, a collection of villanelles (Dancing Girl Press, 2024), and The Passage , inspired by the life and art of American surrealist painter Kay Sage (Finishing Line Press, 2023). She has performed at various venues in NYC, including Powerhouse Arena, Poets House, the Greek Consulate in NY, and Elizabeth Street Garden for McNally Jackson’s summer poetry series. Effie’s current writing project is a feature film adaptation of one of her short stories “Fennec Fox on the Promontory,” to be produced by Nomadis Images.