A MOUNTAIN IN UTAH (thin places 6)

I love the times when there is nothing to say,

like when I am confronted by my colossal

insignificance. That mountain I can reach

out and touch is fifty miles distant in clear air,

and an hour later I drive under one spur where

my belly falls down and my breath is stolen.

The empty highway disappears in the distance

and I get out to bend back and see all the way

up to summer snow and a wispy mare’s tail.

This pebble under its foot is as big as the

county courthouse back home and shades

my awe, danced out under scraggy pines.

I look, but there is no sign to give its name.

It is just the e pluribus unum at the end of a

chain laid out in the uninhabitable desert

we set aside for the Navajo, Ute, and Zuni.

A heaven so open, so wide, so empty, you

know God sometimes comes here to relax.

Strange trees with different bark and

wildflowers make a narrow announcement

that a spring fed creek splashes here on

its way to water the sheep and goats

stranded in this vast space the Indians

call “The Big Empty” full of grace.

Over there a hogan made of desiccated poles,

rusty tin and red clay sits in the shadow and

I wonder what it might be like to be a child

born to endure such isolation in the midst of

grandeur the people who make our rules

have never seen and will never understand.

This place is too big, there is nothing to be

done about it, either. Any touch of machine

would be the kind of sacrilege only the

white man would do, and I am ashamed

because I am a white man with blood

on my hands and am insignificant.

This giant stone, planted in the beginning,

its brown edges worn smooth, rests in its quiet

majesty like a grim king passing judgment,

not on the insignificance of me, but on time

as a slow itch at its feet, and the odd beings

who scramble in their coming and going.

Reviews

[Lorry]

I really do like that term "the big empty vol. It shows me that so many differing eyes can see life so differently from the norm of" I want this and I want that, now! "
Those different eyes can see life as an adventure already written, waiting to be lived, while some of that ever growing" us" tribe can't even get out of bed without a confirmation email to tell us that amazon will be delivering our must have accessory, that will be forgotten and replaced by more must have nows as soon as a drone has shat it onto your porch.
And of course you are right. We all have blood on our hands Vol, either by participating in the exclusion of a race of people we thought it easier to get rid of than share and help, which I believe was their plan all along, at least until those white devil's noticed they didn't like change that much and done their best to make sure the stain of their existence within our not so pristine dreams just wouldn't do.
I'm amazed that of all the races that whiteness thought they owned, that there are any of us left.
But at least we can be thankful they will not stoop so low to play the white man's game of conquering all, no matter the cost.

[Vol]

Lorry,
Thank you... Such a thoughtful response!
My problem is I am THOROUGHLY white, all the way to my bones. Western Civilization, brought the only civilization there is to this brutal, cruel world. When i study almost all other cultures, they are at least as evil as we have proven to be... man's inhumanity to man is on display everywhere, and I must say that on 9/11... I wanted to turn the middle east into a glass parking lot because I recognize my barbarian roots and genetics. Humanity, all of us want peace and quiet, and even achieve it on an individual basis once in a while, but whatever you do, don't let us gather together into groups! We will eat you, the horse you rod in on, an burn your entire history. People suck. Governments suck out loud, but nobody swallows...
so we blunder from one destructive notion to the next. It has been this way since Og first pick up a rock and went over the hill to take out that guy on the other side to steal his woman and food. I can see nothing that has changed in humanity since then. We are why the aliens are afraid to land...
Vol

[Lorry]

Same. My family y tree goes all the way back to Caspar the ghost, but then got a bit not so friendly when the world got smaller and we realised that maybe it is better that not everyone is the same and thankful for that... Otherwise we would all go down tharlt Royal route and keeping our genes in the family, which is best avoided at all costs. 😊

[Vol]

Hahahaha.... (more letters and spaces so I can post this...)