The Soul of New Mexico

Kytka Hilmar has spent decades following the quiet roads of New Mexico, where stories drift like dust and the past leans close enough to touch. Alone but never lonely, she has crossed canyons, slept beneath restless skies, walked riverbanks that remember everything, and stood beneath sunlit adobe walls that still hold the weight of prayers.

In this collection, the land does not sit silent. It speaks through the wind's sharp edge, through rivers that carve deep into memory, through forgotten towns and hidden places where the ghosts of history linger just beneath the surface. Every line is shaped by the road, every word a tribute to the raw beauty of New Mexico — a place where solitude becomes a kind of prayer, and the horizon is never an end but an invitation.

The Soul of New Mexico is not a book of destinations, but a map of belonging. These poems carry the rhythm of the desert, the hush of canyon shadows, the rough honesty of old trails, and the quiet lessons of time and wind. They invite you to listen, not just to the land, but to yourself — to the places inside you that feel most alive when you are far from anywhere, and closer than ever to home.