I am proud to have edited Peter Rabbit’s first posthumous publication, put out by Crescent Press in 2019, and will be holding book signings for it throughout the year in the Southwest. Here is some information on it.

This galloping, hybrid poem presents readers with a gutsy new take on the indigenous source of conquistador Álvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's skill as a healer. Sprinkled throughout with humor and aphoristic wisdom, the tale is told in the voices of six characters, including that of the author himself. In a tone reflective of the New American style of his peers Olson and Dorn−or perhaps of jazz poet Lord Buckley− the book presents historic and transcendent truths relevant to today's world.

Poet Peter Rabbit has uncovered in C. de Vaca's peripatetic adventure the kernel of the enlightened and loving philosophy that put him at odds with the 16th century rulers of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Informed by the author's personal relationship with the handful of psychedelic gurus leading the underground drug revolution of the '60s, as well as by decades of expertise as a respected peyote road man and years of labor in high altitude farming that included development of a potent strain of cannabis indica, the work presents both the factual and the imaginary, disquisition and dialogue, peroration and prayer. A lapsed Catholic and a dedicated mystic, Mr. Rabbit devoted the last years of his life to completing this poem.

Warm, flower-filled pots on backporch release sweet scents in the rain, storm here over us just now, come from raining over Pagosa Springs two hours ago. Moving on already towards Amarillo. Life's slower now, despite speedy weeds leaping out of the ground all around and sun gone just about as far north as it's gonna.

I was born before man exploded the Trinity bomb south of here. Before jet travel. Before space was a destination. Before access to birth control.

Fortunate to be born during the season of the most light, because I was barely sighted. Fortunate to be born when it was warm, because I was extra tiny. Fortunate to be born middle class, because my vet dad could go to college and get a tiny house.

Fortunate to be born a woman in America, because my sisters elsewhere were not even as free as me. Fortunate to have lived into the age of birth control, because my ancestors weren't. Fortunate to have been given an education, because my great grandmothers hadn't. Fortunate to live now with fresh air, because that's not true for my siblings. Fortunate to have sunshine and clean water, because they're not so available where my children live.

Fortunate to have been through seven tens of turns around the sun. Fortunate to be. In joy!