CONGRATULATIONS! Jeweler Colin Coonsis was awarded the Malcom & Connie Goodman Fellowship Award for 2010, and carver Ray Tsalate was awarded the Wolfus Family Fellowship Award for 2010! Both awards are given to foster growth in artists who show promise and potential in the early stages of their careers.



LIZARD AND THE PORTAL by Peter Hensel

The agile lizard is back, poised
on a sandstone ledge
along the steep trail descending
from the ruins---crumbled
scant perimeter wall, broken and low

The lizard that scuttled away
at our approach is back now
and waiting
as we descend the faint trail
twisting round
the ancient mound that wind has made---
dust packed over shards of shattered
ceremonial pots

Whence these colors---
so stunning, so brilliant---lime body
and tail, yellow head with black
bands encircling the throat?

For what does he wait---
little magician no longer than a hand---
yet through mystery’s lens enlarging
like a shining sphinx?

Even the wind---compelled---subsides
to listen

Nothing passes present here without notice

No footsteps go unheard---
not ours slowing stopping
nor those of the ancestors abandoning---
departing the pueblo seven hundred years ago

That day, their day
has become now this day now echoing

Head raised, the portals of tiny eyes gaze out
unblinking---blazing like the sun