The On and On

Didn’t fly full-wing’ed into Zabriskie Point, not like the lover’s leap in that old movie by the same name. Instead slowly descended into the badlands east beyond Death Valley -- after the firsts of blood rocks and shifty mesquite dunes and a pregnant coyote zagging the road. 

I followed my man Michael down a crushed spine-lookin’ trail so white I felt my nervous system sparking. The tall rock around us was pink as crystallized cotton candy and I thought of Mama Nay Nay (mother nature) at the fair some millions of years ago, game prizes water and wind. Mike and I sat on the lowest flat, listened to the breeze whoosh through rock ripple, open sky. Pointed purple hills in the distance, the aqua erosion, the blonde waves wearing a brown toupee, ain’t that cute. We threw loose rocks down each other’s shirts, and I thought of what the soon full moon over Vegas might mean. 

Sun going down, I went to the top of Zabriskie to stand silhouetted by the biggest star. Shrunk to a shadow stick, Michael took the pic from down below. (We really are such ants, you know?) Up top we read the plaques. How mules used to cart through here 20 at a time hauling borax bather$, how you can walk the ancient river, how the layers came to be, apparently a simple synopsis. 

At rock’s ledge, I stared into the rising and falling, the palette’s striation, to the farthest point. The land seemed so malleable, how was it not squishy? Here, I felt the calming muscle move, and I screamed “hello” into everything.