dudemanflab's Diaryland Diary

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Things I thought (and think again)

Went camping last night with the guys--clay, kaleb, frye, mango, colton, chance, and brad. We camped in the same spot we had some two years ago, the stars, sleeping bags, fire, and log all in their places, though the trucks parked at sharper angles and clay did not bring his lumbering and mopey Great Pyrrenese Casper.

The stars twinkle more in the Gila.

In Queens, off of Ridge road, we lie on
our backs, covered up to our noses
with nylon, flannel, and fluff. For the first
time I watch Orion move, he the hunter, trailing
Leo from the eastern buttress of pines
to the interlocking limbs of other green
towers to the west. The tree shadows hull
over our small orange fire, and we tell each other
lines to feel at home in the gathering cold.

........(Consider it closed, with possibility)

We are guests but, together, can recall
the lives spent a hundred miles away. Songs trickle
out of our mouths, as do movie quips,
the stories of our fathers' friends
and of our fathers.

Being a guest, being small, how to feel welcome? how the stars and trees and rocks dust wind have been hovering over this valley for years and we are here for one night.

The Native American belief--"Naive american" says Kaleb--that all this is God. "This is God" says Clay's professor exultant, scooping a handful of peyote from a bowl to his mouth. Looking for arrowheads on the ridge and finding bullet shells--hit me with your best shot.

And the dozen deer we passed. Frye: "Do you think it was an eightpoint???" We all agree it must have been, though through the trees who could say, and Frye says, "Sorry man, that gets me going."

From Indian Vista: under the yawning sun, shadows spread and shrink across the canyon every day as some flowers do. The western face extends reaches and fades into evening, until the eastern shadows will rout them the morning after. Back and forth for years.

The land, trees, water inching through slight arroyos each feels the absence of light, but absence cannot feel itself.

McKittrick Canyon with a dash of green could be Hawaii.

"Those aren't dinosaur bones," says Anthony, "They never existed."
"If the earth is eight thousand years old like the Bible says..."
"That's bull crap" says Brad
Kaleb continues, "... then maybe there weren't dinosaurs"

But Earth you have lived so long and we are only your guests.

2:39 p.m. - January 11, 2008

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