West Desert Journal

In the heart of the mountains, I hear pines singing and admire waves of grass pushing and pulling in meadows. Heavy clouds wield themselves against blue space. At meadow edges, forest gates stand dark where slender pines grow side by side.

I enter a quiet thicket where sunshine sifts through dense branches to touch an organic floor. The woods go on for miles, creeping.

There’s something very queer about high mountainous areas, or plateaus where aspen rattle; where young pines grow among dead ones. I can barely sort out their rotten, crumbling shapes. It is a cemetary.

Laying down on mossy soil, my mind crawls though mysteries. I hear the footsteps of a Sasquatch and the deep breathing in his chest. What a dream! I believe in this creature. Maybe he?s a friendly shadow in sync with earth’s quietness?

Things exist that we cannot see. I’ve spent my lifetime wandering the Southwest and I’ve heard the unusual noises whispering on windy days, or perhaps it was my hallucinogenic imagination?

I’m careful not holler with fear when alone in the mountains, faraway from roads ‘n trails. Deer, squirrels, and chipmunks visit my campsites. Maybe some day the mystery will find me alone. I fear unknown things. Often I wonder if it’s a fear of cougars, bears, and mentally-ill coyotes? Something is spying on me in the deep. The trees have eyes.

To Dad: Thanks for making me aware of the tempest inside.

This cold desert drowns in rain. The heat wave vanished, as clouds come strolling in over the Paria desert, just northwest of Page, Arizona. Water pelts the ground, breaking up the hard dirt. Thunder gallops across the vista, and the wind wails. Lightning flings its arms. In a pinion tree, sits a raven waiting with his head bobbed down. He’s dangling like a Christmas ornament. Water droplets fall from his folded wings, and from his dark tail feathers.

Under an alcove, I wait out the storm. Long ago, ancient Puebloans were hunting and gathering beneath these skies. I could just imagine them traversing up flashflood washes, where white caliche grows on rocks and tree branches, along Cottonwood strewn riverbanks that flow from sandstone canyons.

The raven ruffles his feathers, then flies from the pinion, landing on the ground 10-15 yards away. The little fellow just stands looking at me. Maybe he wants something to eat? I say nothing at all.

His shiny feather coat is perfect. Everything is black. His long beak stays closed and humble. By sage brush and wavy grasses, he rests. Letting the windy valley around, swallow him. Soon he squats, and bows his head falling asleep like a chicken at roost.

The desert is warm colored; dark red sandstone, deep purple clay, orange-pink cliffs, and yellow-tan mesas. The raven is surrounded by all these colors. Together they communicate the deepest message to my heart, that the beauty of this land is forever magnificent and rugged.

I drive out of this small town early on a spring morning, and off into the wilderness. Heading down dirt roads on tires worn thin, they stir dust into clouds. Going 50 miles per hour across purple sage valleys, I’m headed for a mountain range of low rising foothills.

The road itself doesn’t intrude much. Southern Utah is a piece of the old west, where the brown foothills contrast sharply with blue sky. It is quiet, except for the distant rumbling of commercial jet airplanes, or a few cawing ravens.

Living in silence, I have an old-fashioned heart that yearns for the dying past. It is dying because humans are forgetting from whence they came. They are building new technologies and claiming to be evermore advanced. Soon they’ll be claiming to control the weather, and will have every spot of earth under their footsteps.

When that sun falls every night, I cannot stop looking into the crimson colors, knowing that one more day shrivels away. As we head into a future of uncertainty, what will we face?

I feel like a monster possessed with evils
that I cannot escape.

I’m stuck with my vehicle, a necessary evil,
four wheels to carry me across the barren planes.

I am a mass of thoughts
and dreams chasing forgotten things,
a recluse always in those mountains,
always feeling brave and alone.

The atmosphere is teeming with nomadic clouds.
I want to move with passion.

The earth owns my aching, ascetic core.

I’ve been broken and pulverized.
Still, I want to remain undeceived.
I want to resist modern-life
and day-dream.

The sun is rising.
The dog’s lying in the grass
listening to the crickets.

The roses are blooming
along with daffodils.
The wind swings them.

My orange cat’s purring on
The window sill.
Wind whistles through
the window screens.

The sky is lighting up,
burning with
warm glowing hues.

Just outta bed, I
open the wooden door
and sit on the porch.

Chimes sing.
The air is full of
fine sediments
blown in
from the desert.

There are several stories about lost gold mines and Spanish treasure in Southern Utah. After all, this land was once occupied by old Mexico. My grandpa warned me to stay away from the stories. They could drive anybody crazy who listened to them.

I was in a bakery in Cedar City and overheard two bearded guys talking about a possible gold mine that one of them found. Then one individual started telling a story about a crazy hermit that spent an entire lifetime searching for lost gold. He became desperate and found a cave in the mountains near Cedar City and collected all this petrified rat shit from inside. Filling the back of his truck trailer with this stuff, he drove to a place that would confirm it was gold ore! When they saw what it was, they busted apart laughing. I gotta be honest, it was a funny story.

This prospector must have been doped or something? There are many of these types that scourer the desert in search of hidden treasure. They seem to be the ones leaving their beer can trails all over the countryside. I’ve met a few that claim to be “expert” trackers.

lmao…

Today, My brother, my cousin and I were coming back across a very remote area on the Arizona Strip on our way back from Toroweap, of the Grand Canyon. That is where we had been camping. You have to traverse 64 miles of Primitive dirt road to reach this part of the canyon, and we had some bad luck while heading home. My cousin took his truck because it offered 4-wheel drive, but his tire went flat because of a tear. We had some help from a stranger, and that was a lucky thing. We thanked him.

After an hour or more of driving, we came across some ranchers who were herding cattle down the road. They had a twelve-year-old boy that was following them (he was driving a truck and trailer with horses in the back!), and their sheepdog was following behind. As we were passing them, they were stopped and their sheepdog went under the truck, and maybe it was for shade? Anyways, as we were passing them the boy ran over his dog, killing it. It was terrible. We stopped and hollered them down, and the boy came out screaming for his dad with tears in his eyes. His mother had been sitting in the passenger seat. I’ve never seen anything so disheartening, and we were about 38 miles from the main highway.

All the way home, we couldn’t stop talking about what had happened. I can only imagine how this boy must be feeling? I wished I could’ve done more to help?

Stuff like this makes you realize how fragile and short life can be.