The rocks are a polished mosaic of subtle reds and browns, a carefully fitted, infinitely patient jigsaw puzzle covering the ground as far as I can see. Each unique rock blends into a stoically patient crowd and becomes a foundation for the wind. The wind that never truly stops blowing. Only by degrees it seems less evident. I can hear the wind in my ears. It is a sound peculiar to the plateau. I can hear no human sounds, only the sputtering, stuttering wind. It almost dies and then comes back, shuffling and sliding by, blowing my hair and drying my skin. The wind shapes everything from the short stuffy curve of the salt cedars to the perpetual bend in the grass and weeds. No need for a compass, every plant tells the direction of the wind.
The wind talks to me. It tells me stories of time past time and when there was no time. It talks to the rocks with the voice of grass. It talks to the cliffs with the voice of longing for days of sun, blinding and fierce. It talks of nights with stars like searchlights, lighting the soul of the fugitive from the sun. It tells of jasper and quartz. It moans of sandstone and limestone. It weeps of granite and basalt. It cries of clay and sand, of mud sticking to your boots and drying hard as the rock. Sometimes the wind isn’t my friend, its voice is no comfort. It talks of thirst and dryness.
The land is always my friend. Trees that are bushes are my companions. Cactus, yucca and agaves are my guideposts. Lizards doing pushups on the rocks are my audience. I walk without a sound. Silently gliding across the powder-fine dust, breaking the pattern of the rocks with every step. This is a good place to wear a hat. The land is deceptively featureless. From a distance it looks like a blue and gray backdrop, as I walk, it becomes an endless maize of cliffs and canyons. Men build roads straight--out of defiance and for convenience. Nothing is convenient on the plateau.
The clay hills curve and twist. Their loads of rocks gather in piles in the gullies at their base. The hills have a crust, like French bread. As I climb, my feet break through the crust and sink deep into the soft centers of the hills. On the ridges are petrified trees sticking out of the clay like gravestones for a wetter world. The washes form a fractal world zooming out to a satellite view and then in again to the smallest crack and crevice, a highway for ants.
Ants and flies abide. When we take the garbage to the dump thousands of their relatives and friends gather for the viewing. Uninvited, we take some of them with us, opening the windows and driving fast to let the last of them return home. I am certain that anthills live forever. Absent some cataclysmic movement of the crust of the earth, the anthill will be there to greet the Millennium. Ants and flies don’t talk to me at all. The flies become sticky and fly in your eyes and nose just before a storm.
It does rain. The landforms testify of the rain. But even Noah’s flood wouldn’t be enough to keep the land from looking dry. It seems dry even when it is raining. The wind shifts from the south and the islands of clouds send down their veils of moisture. I think it is funny how the people pray for moisture, instead of rain. Its as if God would be offended if we asked for good old honest rain. We need moisture, they pray. I suppose they don’t want to leave out snow, hail and sleet. I must have been born praying for rain. In Panama the people thought I was crazy to go outside and watch the rain. You never get over living in the desert.
When the storm comes, I go outside in my geezer shoes and watch the wind blow the trees. They dance infinite patterns. I keep waiting for the gust that will break the branches but it almost never comes. When it does come, it is dark and we have to run and get saws and ropes to save the fence and house. Dust outlines the wind pattern and races the leaves down the street. Nobody else is watching the wind.
When I was very young, the car stopped and I ran for the cinder hill. I kept running until I reached the top. I had a grandstand seat for the clouds and the lightning. The wind blew and told me of the rain. The land whispered its history of fire and molten rock. I felt, without understanding, the primal forces lifting rock thousands of feet into the air. There were no houses, no cars, except my father’s, nothing but the sky, the clouds and the lightning. In one sharp impression the world became part of my soul. The plateau wind in my ears would always speak to me. I ran down the hill and I was old.
I lay on my back in the dark, looking up through the cliffs to the sky highway. The ground is warm, still reflecting the sun. The night noises echo against the rocks. There is no color, no red and ocher. No mauve and beige. No manganese stains on the rocks. The sky is black and clear, the stars are on the sky highway and move slowly. I can feel the earth turn. I can almost feel it rushing through space around the sun. An airplane passes over and I imagine the people tired, trying to sleep in their uncomfortable seats while I am on the soft earth, in the wilderness only a few thousand feet and many days from their civilization.
I step off into the ice cold water. My sandals catch the current and I slide forward, carefully stepping on the sand and rocks, using my stick to remain upright. The cold water bites into my legs. I know that soon it will not seem cold, but I am happy to reach the dry sand. Within a few steps, my feet are coated with sand. I flip my sandals, shooting wet sand all around. The sun is hot. The tops of my feet begin to dry but the sand is still under my feet rubbing against the soles of sandals. The second time, the water feels good. It washes away the sand and cools my feet. A rock stays. Caught by my foot and the sandal. I stoop to pick it loose. I think I should have worn my boots but then I remember to lift my foot away from the sandal and let the water remove the rocks. A few more steps and I forget sandals and sand and rocks, I begin to see the trees, the birds and the canyon walls. I see the giant saguaro, on the cliffs above the trees, standing guard, never coming close to the water, as if afraid of the grass and trees.
Big fires are big news, but when the fire dies, the black trees and black earth gather no interviews. No one is there to watch once the flames and color die. I step into the ash and it coats my boots with black against brown and red. The dead trees lie like pick-up-sticks, in a random pile. There is supposed to be a trail somewhere in this tangle. But I am high off the ground, stepping from tree to tree, hoping that they do not shift and dump me to the ground. The edge of the Rim is steep and the piles have shifted downhill blocking the turns in the trail. Suddenly, the trail appears and I float through an eddy of green shade and flowers. Fires are untidy, they leave patches of trees untouched. The older burn scars are a tangle of weeds and brush, exposed to the brilliant sun. I am in the cool shade of the trees.
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