West Desert Journal

The morning light peered through that dirty window. The dawn was dark blue. The gusts of night were settling down. Robins nestled in trees and sung in choruses. My feelings were bewildered. My brain was recovering from yesterdays unsettling world of chaos: News flashing, history popping, and radios screaming. They all had the unique affect of creating a rambunctious fury.

Where the mountain sits waiting, the white painted aspens rattle their leaves; something grows uneasy? Here in a dark bedroom, unsettled thoughts march down the main-streets of my subconscious, into halls of my conscious. They refuse to leave, and are so pugnacious.

Night time slips away, and when dawn shines through the window, there’s so many reasons to be thankful. As I write, I ponder previous days and the hardships that humans continue to face.

The redrock sea still simmers shortly after dusk. During daytime hours, it was a frying pan sizzling beneath traveling blue clouds. Even green shady trees couldn’t yield to that massive fireball in heaven!

This world of crimson light hums with desert heat. Secrets shroud themselves in realms of deep starry night, after father sun drifts beyond western horizons. Listen to those humble hoots of a wasteland owl that sings from cottonwoods. Many creatures hunt skillfully in darkness.

To all furry little rodents, beware! That great winged beast haunts the midnight air.

He raises his arms to the black sky untamed knowing of an endless escape, of making voyages to limitless places, where the clouds form dark castles. The gentle rains touch the weary land with a sparkling shimmer, like stars at night. These vistas weave a web in his mind, entrenching themselves permanently.

Forever, let him travel where eagles beat their wings upon air and plane the sky so free. This Journey tonight is a different world beyond the Sun’s horizon, where heaven and Earth meet. Oh how this heart sings!

There are strange feelings in my bosom, singing in my cranium. They roar like thunder in summer. These dreams love beauty. They stand defiant against those that harm Mother Earth. For the land never stops calling my spirit. Those Pinion foothills call my name, and even spacious landscapes of isolation. Those mountains laugh and sing like coyotes, but they protect this loneliness.

I am free from the cage of society, free from chains. I throw away those consumerist woes. I can feel Earth Mother once again, and feel her beautiful dream, even on darkened nights.

The spring season draws nearer. Flowers start to bloom. The crickets are fiddling at dusk. Robins start their chaotic symphonies right before dawn. Far away from town, my mind floats through mountain valleys of sage and cedar.

In the middle of night the tower of stars glows bright. In a rocky canyon that surpasses time, I surpass the vanities of a punitive world. On that eroded desert floor my camp fire burns and crackles. The light flickers and dances off sandstone walls.

Sometimes a blackened forest is a cathedral in the bliss of night. When all else fails to make me happy, I disappear into the wild. I sometimes fear the mysteries that creep out there, to and fro; where rocks may speak their wishes! But on those long days, the Creator is looking after my lonely heart.

Forgotten whispers are carefully listened to. The old ways travel the wind. Always respect what is sacred.

I am not satisfied with the current design for this weblog, so I am going to change things around a bit. It was supposed to be an experiment, but I’ve become greatly attached to this. I haven’t quite figured out how to use it? There is two other places that I do some serious writing; my personal hardback journal, and my notepad where poems are born. The blog is more informal, but highly personal?

This morning, I’m just waiting on some clothes in the dryer, and then I’m headed to the Canyon Country Western Arts Festival which is just a few blocks from home. They’re going to have a couple singing groups from the Paiute tribe, which I look forward to. Many local artisans are there to display their work. Later on, the spotlight will focus on the cowboy poets and musicians, my favorite being the yodeling contest!

My brother and I are planning a trip tonight. We hope to travel to Toroweap, located 66 miles south of the Utah/AZ state line. It?s on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We will hopefully depart March 19, next week.

I’ve been stuck here in this worthless town all Spring break. My car is shipwrecked in the driveway and nothing to do. Hopefully it’ll get fixed soon, so I can go out into the boonies.

I pulled my car up to a post marker off the side of the highway,
and there hung a dead coyote. Its head was tied to the post with bailing wire

His face was covered in blood
and his glassy eyes were still open staring at the broken sky.
its tongue was hanging out and drizzling.

I feel anger and sorrow for this murdered creature.
I wanted to untie his body and bury his soul somewhere remote.
a secret place where he could rest.

The coyote, a friend, but they stuck him on display
wasting his life away. They cut his ears off at the base
for some sort of bounty for the local BLM.

I can’t stop seeing into those glassy eyes and into the shadows of the beast.
Hopelessly hanging there, fur whipping in the wind. I’m connected to its death.
cold blood moving. the breathing is brittle and short.

As I looked at you coyote I felt the sorrow of this world.
Those damned cowboy men with chewing tobacco, leaving beer can trails all over
are bloody murderers and thieves of this ancient land.

They mock the very soul of this beautiful wild.

There’s a feeling deep inside every human being,
a tiny suspicion about something that lurks around in reality.
It cannot be seen nor heard, because it hides itself.
It can visit you with it’s clues!

It’s the abnormal shadow in the green trees.
It is in those abandoned hills, and in the darkness of an attic.
It loves the moonlit night with an eerie presence.
It loves to hide at the bottoms of the ocean
like the white whale that killed Captain Ahab.

It is in Grandma’s old cellar.
You can feel it while looking at a crystal waterfall,
or down an ancient highway with weeds growing from it’s flat top.

There it hides in the corner of your heart, taunting your might.
It would like to reveal itself to you.
And someday it will on a mysterious afternoon,
in the right place, at the right time. You will get to meet it.

Avoiding the coyotes and the other things that creep and crawl upon the skin, in the darkness of the earth, he follows the whispers from the mountains. He follows them to the source. He sits there with the rain falling into his hand from the black sky above and cups it carefully, staring into the liquid. His crystal eye is full of passion for the Creative Powers. Where the old trees stand strong and the sandstone is red, he hides in the shadows. Where his bare feet wonder those ageless stone lands, silence bears full witness. This boy travels the desert, talks with the holy wind, and dreams of long ago. Yes, he will go the correct way. He will not die, but will see the vision of the old people.

There are places he goes that refuse to cast darkness about, he seeks the light of the yellow sun above. There, the mystery beings hide in the passing thunder clouds as they climb up over the painted hills.

Plant those tiny seeds in the Earth. She will care for them. She will help them grow. They will turn into the magical forms of life that sustain beauty. Their leaves will take in the wind. The laughter will startle you from the corn stalks in the small field at the edge of the mesa.

This is where a single cloud moves its shadow down off the red mesa into the silent and spacious.

The Ghost hides, but the crooked old woman can see it. Then she calls for her husband to come out and see it. He is also barely able to walk on tired feet. The Sky Father above can change, and the earth protects them. Old woman cries though, and the husband starts to pray. The ghost of the dead then fades away, back to the crossing.

Two worlds under this one sky come together. Show it respect. Do not tread on sacred ground. Back off. Do not trespass where the Creative Power forbids. Stand worthy to dream, and to walk in the beauty of it all, where you are allowed.

The days of today are still beautiful. The Creator is still happy. Forget the new world. The old one has always existed and will forever more. Time will not stop talking. Mother Earth is with the Holy Wind. We were given life from both. They are us! We are them.

Today I sleep away in this slumber
and awoke to a footstep and then another

My campfire was still smoking.
The morning light was close but an not quite.
The blue haze of the night lurked around my tent.
The wind dashed through the trees.
Then the clouds under the moonlight slid
silently over the mountains.

All alone, I had wandered across this countryside,
and then rested away in my camp.
The fire burned, and danced through the night.
I made it very big to keep me from fright.
This was a deep cemetery of trees! Very old they were!
I had traveled through them, like a trance.

Now I am in my tent and I have awaken!
This footstep fear is in my veins, and I tick with fear.
What is out there? I worry myself as I soon
remember I had left my food out over the night.

All of a sudden I can hear a curious snort!
My dinner pan bangs on the ground.
I can hear licking from a snout,
and grunts from some kind of beast.
What is it? What is out there?
The furry thing moves about.

I can hear him in the early light. What should I do?
I do not want to move,
cause I feel stiff! After a moment,
I Slowly and cautiously get up
and take a peek through the screen
of the tent and there in front of me is a Bear!

A REAL BEAR!!!

I watch in quiet bewilderment
he doesn’t know I am here.
He is eating my food, piece by peace.

The fear is still in me.
I rattle the tent like a bush
and make strange sounds,
as if I were a beast too.
The bear stops in his routine and stares at me.
He is now frozen with fear.
The black bear’s eyes are stuck,
then like a flash of huge thunder
he takes off running into the forest,
and then he is gone.

Every now and then, there is a strange silence on that mountain that finds its own way into our little town. Mysterious animals shroud themselves in the forests up there, beneath the cloud scraped skies.

Alone and dirty on quiet afternoons, I like to leave the town on foot entering into those trees on the mountain’s edge. The great forest always knows when I am coming.

I climb to a hill just below the mountain and sit down on top of it to take a break, letting a little sunshine bathe me.

Ever since I was a kid, I’m used to the fact that trees can talk to each other. They can visit among each other like people, but with their own tree language. Words among trees spread faster than the wind. One tree sees me coming, and they all know I’m there!

People do not listen to this mountain very much, they seem to have their ears closed when it speaks or acts funny.

Long ago, it is said that there was a great bird the size of a house that found the shady canyons of the mountain a home. I believe there are creatures here today, still unheard of.

If you carefully listen when you come to the mountain, you will be tricked into hearing phantom noises. These whispers or jolting laughs are the trees being funny. If you hear anything that you cannot explain, it is them. They like to fool with your mind!

When no one is around but me, the trees sing. They sing happiest when the wind filters through their branches.

Trees think and can record history in their own way too. They seem to keep memories of those that have died long ago; remembering the wars, and the good times of five fingered beings!

The trees of this mountain have always been together and united. They know what peace and happiness are. While Mother Earth turns on her axis, there they are always waiting. They know what the wind will bring. They know it carries in its arms, silent messages of the Earth Mother. She speaks her thoughts through them. They talk when she does.