Cathedral Rock
High on the formation
the bugs southern tingy song
comes and goes with the gusting wind.
Black birds open up a white wingspan to fly
down to ancient sycamores growing in the stream.
This photo above was taken in Bryce.
Climbing Humphreys
.
We walked a grass meadow to the forest edge
the lime green new growth of the pine
spread and opened a mile in to expose a hill of rock
too great for human hands
The easy slow switch backs lead through Aspen
tall white trunks rise from the fern forest floor.
We stumble over large rocks and exposed roots
the first two miles, getting acclimated to 11,000 ft
and then the knee lifts begin, slow scrambling past
false peaks to make it on top of an ancient volcano.
.
There is a constant buzz at 12,633 feet, a live hive
hungry flies we see
south mountains draped in pines
a soft carpet of Aspen lies in the valley crooks below
The 360 degree view affords us the view of the North Rim and Walnut Canyon by just turning
a simple circle.
.
The next day we watched Humphreys in the rear view mirror
Onward to see the Grand Canyon South rim as
soft sandaled tourists.
~
Jerome
.
Nearby Jerome copper mines
turned the grassy meadow brassy
tingy to the taste of a bleak landscape
lowering from ancestrial Pueblos’ mazes.
.
Toward the hills of a glistening J
the lights of Jerome draw
day-time travelers to sit sipping beer
from the balcony of an old Asylum.
.
Turquoise infused Juniper wood
lies in the precious glassed galleries
where the locals tell time on spring-loaded clocks
bouncing from ‘8’ balls (Pura Gallery)
anything to tell us what the sun is doing.
.
The town joy engulfed with the most experimental
and expressive of arts, for a conservative
valley of straight-laced thinkers.
Categories
St. George Utah and the White Hills
Hike around St. George and discover the white knuckles of Snow Canyon.
~
From the Colorado North, into Sedona
.
We ride over a corner and the Ponderosa Pine
falls suddenly off to the left.
Entering the Oak Creek Canyon narrows down
to Sedona.
We walked a figure eight around the courthouse
then bell rock, a four mile entry into the city we’d call home for the next four nights.
~
~
Hoodoos
.
Chess pawn pieces
ornaments to the garden
left to freeze
in an eruption of the landscape
exposed to a dry cobalt sky.
.
The sand residue glistens
fills up the prongs of the aloe plant
starves the tree roots of stable ground
leaving in the remains
Queen Elizabeth on her thrown
wallstreet and a lazy alligator
all in bad luck.
Over the Grand Canyon
Are you wondering above the smog
over the canyon
the bright sky that hugs
low humid afternoons
about the sound of a gunshot
wound tumbling, echoing off
ancient carvings, rocks that fall.
The coveted beauty turned
a shoulder to our societies’
ignored warning
the warmest summer on record
for America cried
the glistening drops of honeysuckle
blooming a month too early.
A shadow glow of misty morning dew
rising foot in front of foot step wide
paths with wind sounds river melodic
like living next to an ocean, but here
in the desert the shifting of low wheat tassels
blow together, wind making an offering
to the hot hot sun.
Small World
We walk like tourists
in our soft shoes
scuffing the earth
with or eyes
we listen to colors
watch rainbows and forests
blow over with the storm
of a flickering candle.
Praying in the Desert
Long shadows on the hollow rock
walking among monuments of the desert
the agave century plant blooms pads of self-rising yellow buds.
The Ave Maria of the mountains
field song swelling in the Chapel of the Holy Cross
the red risen church with low benches for praying
and viewing the psychedelic flowers of the desert.
American Earth Rim
Leopard print hills are just
out in the Mohave desert
south and east of Las Vegas.
To the north of The Rim
sits St. George among steeples
of church and mountain.
Four times a year eighteen
galleries open to the night
to be closed by curfew.
Architects build on black lava rock
just beneath the peaking faces
of snow canyon
the quilted hills
diminish a climbing figure and crawl
slowly back into a covered earth.
Just miles away from the spotted hills
stained south of The Rim.
