"Levi Romero is a strange kind of wizard. He can walk up a New Mexico arroyo and come back with a mysterious object full of quotidian magic. Like a rusted tobacco can the grand-fathers used to roll their smokes. And when you pry open the lid, you can hear their laughter and gossip coming out. That's what he does in poem after poem. I read his work and I learn again how to love this life."--Luis Alberto Urrea

Through familiar details--leaking faucets and lowriders, "chicharrones" and chicken coops--Levi Romero remembers "familia, comunidad, " and "tradiciones" from his upbringing in northern New Mexico's Embudo Valley. Alongside his training and jobs in the building trades and the architectural profession, and now a teacher, his writing has maintained and nurtured his connection to the unique people and land he knows so well and that have seldom been represented in American poetry.

This impassioned book, both a loving description and a critique, defines urban values in a milieu that is rarely recognized as a city. Updated more than ten years after its initial publication, it is more relevant than ever to Albuquerque's future. A new chapter describes Albuquerque's recent development, placing it in the context of urban growth in the West.