Travelogue
26 April 2009 07:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammerTheir names punctuate the extending highway:
Wickenberg, Kingman, Needles, Barstow, Boron,
and whether with branching saguaro
or forking Joshua trees, each town speaks
of desiccation -- of the land, of people.
We are desert, but still we drive ourselves hard
to Tehachapi's camp under pines,
the border of Mojave and Valley.
The air beyond speaks human occupation:
refineries in the stink of Bakersfield,
agriculture by the road north through
Visalia, except where the orchards
are broken by erupting toes of foothills.
Broad and flat, the place feels small -- haze enforces
shortsightedness, divorcing Valley
from the mountains that define extent. Take
a broad shelf of granite as long as a state,
tip sideways, turn an edge to a grey range, scour
with scornful ancient glaciers to gouge
U-valleys that define remaining peaks --
a recipe for Sierra Nevadas,
large enough you must travel for perspective,
where even closed walls of Kings Canyon
have more scope than flat basin and far range.
We come here for that, for the diminution:
you contract in such a space, as you traverse
a broad glacial basin on foot, high
up the walls, or pace out the distances
of a hungry river still doing the work
of vanished ice, slowly eating away at
high hard faces changing above us
as we munch through paces of graveled trail --
plus for the body's sense of accomplishment,
a settled ache from miles of self-propulsion,
the effect of effort on flavor,
how toes are grateful for release from boots.
Thus conditioned, we shoulder our vision and
head out, into the high country carrying
all we need for a brief survival
upon our backs, up and in past the flats,
Mist Falls, and the long cataracts above it
to Paradise Valley, which wears its name well --
a long flat of U where the river
lazes, satiated with its own sand,
where we spend chill nights beneath the old grey walls
whose bouldered bases we had just traversed. From
all angles, their message is the same:
"You are small. You are young. You are meager."
Perhaps we are. But the effort of long days
resides in our stretched sinews, settling us
deeper in our skins, and when the dark
world rests, we gaze past the stones to the stars.
Surviving these encounters with profound thoughts,
pit toilets, and mule deer with fawns, one morning
we take a last long look at the deep
valley and hike out, a lovely descent
until the heat of this deep canyon's bottom
(the unshaded flats at the open trailhead,
little higher than Fresno, partakes
too of its temperatures) trapped by the walls
reflecting off white granite gravel melts our
composure. We stumble out, humbled. Never
underestimate the power of
cold showers to make one human once more.
This collapse of our limits, this memento
mori, disturbs more than it enlightens us
with mental mirrors still distorted,
but reflection turns to remembrance:
"While you are there, you must go see the big trees."
Since they grow at cool altitudes, we agree
and drive up to the groves above us
for a shorter hike through a forest dark
with firs, cedars, pines -- large enough for their type,
yet eyes are drawn by the giant cinnamon
sequoia trunks, creating open
spaces by dominance. They are massive,
but not massifs, just so large we can still grasp
their scale while still -- large and old, yes, but like us
alive. We rest here underneath them,
taking comfort in their gentle presence.
And that is that -- but for the return. Packed up,
we search for one more perspective, a look back
as we roll downhill, faster, down to
myopic Valley and parched Mojave
to chase trains. Once across the Colorado,
familiar signs begin to appear (basin-
and-range, ocotillos) but slowly --
the what makes home feel home accumulates
like an ecotone (saguaros, mesquite scrub,
thunderheads) rising with no clear edge. Not till
we pull up in front do we realize
home is where you go inside to relax.
Some vacations, following an urge I cannot articulate, I journal in verse -- as with the Iceland Renga. This one's from a Stateside camping trip, written a couple stanzas a day, and I've never quite convinced myself it's worth reworking into something publishable. As for the form, I can only confess I'd been reading a lot of Auden.
---L.
Wickenberg, Kingman, Needles, Barstow, Boron,
and whether with branching saguaro
or forking Joshua trees, each town speaks
of desiccation -- of the land, of people.
We are desert, but still we drive ourselves hard
to Tehachapi's camp under pines,
the border of Mojave and Valley.
The air beyond speaks human occupation:
refineries in the stink of Bakersfield,
agriculture by the road north through
Visalia, except where the orchards
are broken by erupting toes of foothills.
Broad and flat, the place feels small -- haze enforces
shortsightedness, divorcing Valley
from the mountains that define extent. Take
a broad shelf of granite as long as a state,
tip sideways, turn an edge to a grey range, scour
with scornful ancient glaciers to gouge
U-valleys that define remaining peaks --
a recipe for Sierra Nevadas,
large enough you must travel for perspective,
where even closed walls of Kings Canyon
have more scope than flat basin and far range.
We come here for that, for the diminution:
you contract in such a space, as you traverse
a broad glacial basin on foot, high
up the walls, or pace out the distances
of a hungry river still doing the work
of vanished ice, slowly eating away at
high hard faces changing above us
as we munch through paces of graveled trail --
plus for the body's sense of accomplishment,
a settled ache from miles of self-propulsion,
the effect of effort on flavor,
how toes are grateful for release from boots.
Thus conditioned, we shoulder our vision and
head out, into the high country carrying
all we need for a brief survival
upon our backs, up and in past the flats,
Mist Falls, and the long cataracts above it
to Paradise Valley, which wears its name well --
a long flat of U where the river
lazes, satiated with its own sand,
where we spend chill nights beneath the old grey walls
whose bouldered bases we had just traversed. From
all angles, their message is the same:
"You are small. You are young. You are meager."
Perhaps we are. But the effort of long days
resides in our stretched sinews, settling us
deeper in our skins, and when the dark
world rests, we gaze past the stones to the stars.
Surviving these encounters with profound thoughts,
pit toilets, and mule deer with fawns, one morning
we take a last long look at the deep
valley and hike out, a lovely descent
until the heat of this deep canyon's bottom
(the unshaded flats at the open trailhead,
little higher than Fresno, partakes
too of its temperatures) trapped by the walls
reflecting off white granite gravel melts our
composure. We stumble out, humbled. Never
underestimate the power of
cold showers to make one human once more.
This collapse of our limits, this memento
mori, disturbs more than it enlightens us
with mental mirrors still distorted,
but reflection turns to remembrance:
"While you are there, you must go see the big trees."
Since they grow at cool altitudes, we agree
and drive up to the groves above us
for a shorter hike through a forest dark
with firs, cedars, pines -- large enough for their type,
yet eyes are drawn by the giant cinnamon
sequoia trunks, creating open
spaces by dominance. They are massive,
but not massifs, just so large we can still grasp
their scale while still -- large and old, yes, but like us
alive. We rest here underneath them,
taking comfort in their gentle presence.
And that is that -- but for the return. Packed up,
we search for one more perspective, a look back
as we roll downhill, faster, down to
myopic Valley and parched Mojave
to chase trains. Once across the Colorado,
familiar signs begin to appear (basin-
and-range, ocotillos) but slowly --
the what makes home feel home accumulates
like an ecotone (saguaros, mesquite scrub,
thunderheads) rising with no clear edge. Not till
we pull up in front do we realize
home is where you go inside to relax.
—11–19 August 2001
This is a test of the Dreamwidth crossposting functionality. If this also appears on LiveJournal with a cut tag, I did it right; if not, I get to blame buggy pre-beta code. Win-win!Some vacations, following an urge I cannot articulate, I journal in verse -- as with the Iceland Renga. This one's from a Stateside camping trip, written a couple stanzas a day, and I've never quite convinced myself it's worth reworking into something publishable. As for the form, I can only confess I'd been reading a lot of Auden.
---L.