WEBVTT

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Desert quartet.

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Earth.

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Earth, rock, desert.

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I am walking barefoot
on sandstone,

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flesh responding to flesh.

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It is hot.

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So hot.

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The rock threatens to burn
through the calloused soles

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of my feet.

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I must quicken my pace, paying
attention to where I step.

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For as far as I can see, the
canyon country of Southern Utah

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extends in all directions.

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No compass can orient me here.

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Only a pledge to love and
walk the terrifying distances

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before me.

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What I fear and desire most
in this world is passion.

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I fear it because
it promises to be

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spontaneous, out of
my control, unnamed,

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beyond my reasonable self.

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I desire it because
passion has color

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like the landscape before me.

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It is not pale.

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It is not neutral.

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It reveals the back
side of the heart.

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I climb this little
rock on all fours,

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my hands and feet
throbbing with the heat.

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It feels good to
sweat, to be engaged,

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to inhabit my animal body.

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My destination is
Druid Arch by way

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of the Joint Trail
and Chesler Park,

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located in the southeastern
corner of Canyonlands

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known as the Needles.

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I have no map.

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Only cairns to guide me.

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The hand stacked piles of rocks
that say trust me, turn here,

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I know the way.

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Many resist cairns
in the desert.

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Kick them down, believing
each traveler should

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walk on their own authority.

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It is also true some cairns have
been designed to fool people,

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to trick them off the trail, so
they will become lost forever.

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A quick lesson in
self-reliance to never

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believe in the
stories of others.

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But I believe that
our desire to share

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is more potent and trustworthy
than our desire to be alone.

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And so I do not anticipate
these markers will lie.

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To walk in this country
is always an act of faith.

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The cairns I have followed
have not secured my own path

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to intimacy as much as they have
given me the courage to proceed.

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One foot in front of
the other in a landscape

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mysterious,
unpredictable, and vast.

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Nobody knows the way.

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That is the myth of convention.

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Cedar Mesa formations
of sandstone envelop me.

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These pastel cliffs
could convince you

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that you're a hostage
with no way out.

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But the various shales,
softer in character,

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create the slopes and benches
to climb out of one canyon

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into the heart of another.

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Once I enter the
Joint Trail, it is

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as though I am walking through
the inside of an animal.

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It is dark, cruel, and
narrow, with sheer sandstone

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walls on either side of me.

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I look up, a slit of sky above.

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Light is deceptive here.

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The palms of my hand search
for a pulse in the rocks.

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I continue walking.

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In some places, my hips
can barely fit through.

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I turn sideways.

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My chest and back in a
vise of geologic time.

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I stop the silence that lives in
these sacred hallways, presses

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against me.

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I relax.

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I surrender.

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I close my eyes.

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The arousal of my breath
rises in me like music,

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like love as the possessive
muscles between my legs

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tighten, and release.

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I come to the rock in a
moment of stillness giving

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and receiving, where there is
no partition between my body

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and the body of Earth.

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There are always
logical explanations

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for the loss of one's
mind in the desert.

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The parallel and
intersecting maze

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I have been traveling
through is tortured

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rock pulled apart by internal
tensions and stresses

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that formed fractures in Earth.

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These fractures become
susceptible to erosion,

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creating deep slots
between fins of sandstone.

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Through the weathering of our
spirit, the erosion of our soul.

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We are vulnerable.

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Isn't that what passion is?

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Bodies broken open
through change?

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We are acted upon.

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We invite and accept the life
of another to take root inside.

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The succession of the
canyons is like our own.

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I'm waiting to hear a fern
hangs from the slick brought.

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Water drips, drips, drips
until I catch it in my mouth.

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Drink deeply, the desert sighs.

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For the next few
miles, I simply walk

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through the pastoral
country of Chesler Park.

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Meadows of serenity, this
landscape will take care of me.

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The open expanse of sky makes
me realize how necessary it

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is to live without words, to
be satisfied without answers,

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to simply be in a world where
there is no wind, no drama.

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To find a place of
peace, rest, and safety,

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no matter how fleeting it may
be, no matter how illusory,

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is to regain composure
and locate bearings.

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Picking up stones, I find
myself adding to the cairns.

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Elephant Canyon is composed
of limestone ledges, turquoise

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and lavender stairs
that eventually lead

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desert pilgrims to Druid Arch.

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The vegetation is lush
as clumps of milkweed,

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their orange fluorescence,
attract monarchs in migration.

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Willows, oak, and
single leaf ash

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provide cover for collared
lizards and towhees.

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Their shuffling in
the dry leaf litter

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reminds me of all I do not see.

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And the potholes sinks of water
in the sandstone beckon me down

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on hands and knees
for a closer look.

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The minutia of mosquito and
may fly larvae, fairy shrimp,

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tadpoles, and diving
beetles is swirling

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with its own sense of urgency.

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Perhaps this is the mind of
the lover, manic and driven.

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The shallow pools of expectation
that inevitably dry up.

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Why is it?

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For most of us, the
vision of the erotic

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comes as a rare event.

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A shooting star, a flash flood,
a moment of exotic proportion

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and not in a stable condition.

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In this tiny body of water in
the desert, I detect waves.

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I think of the ocean.

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Wave after wave breaking onshore
in interminable monotony,

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yet witnessed, one by one, they
can hold us in trance for hours.

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The afternoon had
delivered me to Druid Arch.

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Nothing has prepared me for
this insistence of being.

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The pure artistry
of shape and form

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standing quietly, magnificently,
in the canyons of Utah.

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Red rock, blue sky.

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This arch is structured
metamorphosis.

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Once a thin light tower,
it has been perforated

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by a massive cave
in responsible now

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for the keyholes where
wind enters and turns.

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What has been opened, removed,
eroded away as compelling to me

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as what remains.

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Druid Arch-- inorganic matter.

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Rock rising from the desert
floor as a creation of time.

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Weathered, broken,
and beautiful.

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I touch the skin of my face.

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It seems so callow.

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Moving my fingers over the soft
flesh that covers my cheekbones,

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I wonder what it
means to be human.

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And why at this
particular moment,

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rock seems more accessible and
yielding than my own species.

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