At the bend, where the cottonwoods grow, and the
dry creekbed is green with storm fed grasses, natives have camped for countless centuries neath the protecting
sandstone walls of North Canyon. For a day I manage to keep my distance,
to occupy my thoughts with other nooks and crannies ... where the game
lay in the heat of the day; where springs trickle chime-like into catchbasins
and old passages; where the owl flies from her fracture in the cliff-face
when I wander too close ...
For a day and a rainy night I stay out of sight
and sound of this meadow dotted with yucca ring, chola and pricklypear cactus heavy
in yellow and red fruit... but now I'm curiously watching a yellowjacket
and grasshopper vie for each one's portion of the same red morsal of cactus
fruit, in this very field, watching as they push and shove, settling for
opposite corners to continue their feasts. So much moisture this year
it shows everywhere. The grasses are half as tall as they were last
September, like Ernie's, back home in the mountains. So much moisture
the sun shone less, and the plants just couldn't grow tall, and I can walk
easily through a field that was shoulder high and constrained my dog to the
paths I plowed for us last fall. Now Clue could have wandered at will
and not run into the cactus lurking in the tall grass. There were
no tall grasses and the cactus were very visible and there was no Clue, at
least not physically.
I wander the drainage to a curious rock fence.
Homesteaders keeping cattle away from the
spring sources 80, 100 years ago? I trace the path to a rock
shelter
Clue had led us to nine years back, when we first entered these
canyons,
searching for shadow plays and glyphs that speak of other ancient
peoples.
And I smile. I still see someone's work on the dirt floor of the
cave, chips and flakes glisten though the sky is dark with pending
rain, shifted
by wind and water and creatures varied and strange, but still here to
tell
of their space in time. I am at peace again, visiting this
familiar
and sheltering place, and I re-learn that time is a tool for growth, a
place
for healing to occur, and that time is multi-faceted and cuts through
the
ages and leads me back to set up evening camp singing the old songs
with
all my dear friends.
If I knew that I could I would walk it all.
Starting here, right now. First one foot, then the other, and I'd keep
moving 'till something caught my attention and changed my direction.
If I knew I could I'd slow my pace to more fully absorb what surrounds me
like I sense the ancients did. But I'm hurried this day by the highway
noises to the south and to the west; and the urban development to the north
and to the east; and the incredible speed that time has obtained. How
quickly everything is changing. If I move too slowly I'll not be able
to put my foot down on anything familiar. If I stop to take in the
view I'll see the Earth disappearing into the future from my vantage point
somewhere in an ever-expanding universe.
But I'm here, now, on a sandstone ridge west of
Hartsel, Colorado, instead of North Canyon in the Comanche N'tl Grasslands,
again looking for signs left by the ancients ... now pressed to pace myself in
front of relentless growth. I know I've been here before, several times,
leaving signs for future beings to interpret as my presence: Symbols
ground and pecked and painted and dreamed; of hunts and seasons and life
and wonder. Stories of how it was always eternal for the ancients and
changing so fast for us now. Pieces of stone and mineral and clay that
show our physical world and deeds, that show how quickly we have to make
do as time compresses while it expands. Sometimes I think we're all
Buddhist.
And I know as I interpret a broken blade into a
hunt, or maybe breakage in the making, that I can no longer make my evening
camp here, that this place now is used differently, and my centering comes
with the thought that now is also changing. I repeat my words of thanks
many times and set my path to follow the ridge-top back to where I left my
truck, noticeable by its lack of movement relative to the swelling evening
traffic. As I pick my way down the rocky slope, looking for a gap in
the flow like my friend deer down the road, a favorite childhood song appears
in my mind and I join in:
the bear went over the mountain,
the bear went over the mountain,
to see what he could see.
to see what he could see,
The bear went over the mountain,
the bear went over the mountain,
the bear went over the mountain,
to see what he could see.
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