I don't know if any of you have ever gotten up
to that Canyon de Chelly area.
But I'm up there pretty often now, on the Navajo reservation.
And the canyon itself is such an amazing place,
mainly because it seems to just be underneath grounds level.
That's one of the things, and because of the way it twists.
And I had some depressing views on the canyon,
I guess from seeing it.
I think the contrast of the beauty of it
gave me a very, very strange impression,
and produced a rather strange poem.
"At Canyon de Chelly".
"If only I had a prayer rattle to take home,
from where water runs over rare stucco rock,
and mornings the sun glows across the high mesa country
of nature's hidden city.
We hear voices of children we cannot see, and iron wheels.
It seems the tribes just move through.
Leave her city alone.
The pueblo people have moved out for good.
Their homes remain on snaking chasms of river honed office
buildings, cut like fissures above the autumn
trees and tall grass.
You may miss seeing it beneath grounds level,
but too many eyes have peered in.
Intimidating, I fear, presences who keep the world's plan,
and at dawn their rope ladders are not let down.
Listen to the children playing far below.
Notice, to the east, the horses have no riders".