A Place for Everyone and Everyone In Their Place
I got my digital shovel
out of the virtual shed
and I started digging.
Digging into the puzzle that is San Miguel County.
Ready? Here we go …
9 Airports
25 Basins
2 Bridges
23 Canals
3 Cemeteries
6 Cliffs
14 Dams
3 Falls
14 Flats
5 Gaps
19 Lakes
26 Locales
1 Military something
607 Mines
7 Parks
2 Pillars
23 Populated Places
4 Post Offices
1 Range
1 Reserve
49 Reservoirs
3 Ridges
33 Springs
73 Streams
70 Summits
88 Valleys
There you have it.
All the USGS-certified Places
—with a capital P—
of San Miguel County, unearthed.
The manmade and the natural,
the maintained and the free range.
All Tetris’d into this wide-from-side-to-side enigma of sand and snow.
Not sure why not listed are the number of mesas …
where the snow drifts into windspits and the sky is as big as life itself.
Or canyons, which we blind-drive in blizzards
or shimmy into for shade and rock art.
No matter, less advertising less visitors, right?
If you ski, climb, or kayak here, you are a Placeholder.
When you hunt or gather or fill your canteen at a high desert seep,
you tend the garden,
and when you pick up your mail, or mourn at a gravestone,
you relish connection and feel the loss.
What’s yourPlace
—with the capital P—
between Bridal Veil Falls and the Utah border?
The Place that you vote for,
the Place you call home.
By Daiva Chesonis • San Miguel Poet Laureate 2019-2022