Redrock Whispers

Amazing Grace,

Colors everywhere sweep across the land, the sky. She watches as a condor dives, rises, and falls again over the edge of the world. He disappears, but he is not gone. The edge of the world is simply where he makes his home. Across the valley, specks of green punctuate the cliffs of red and orange as if garnish to the finest dessert. The earth is melting ice cream. The earth is apple cobbler. The earth is the most beautifully swirled and fruity cheesecake she has ever seen. She wonders what eternity tastes like.

how sweet the sound

Silence. The air is stagnant, heavy. It is hot and smells of burnt juniper and sun-baked mud. She raises her hand to her brow and squints through the late afternoon light. She sees the river thousands of feet below, choppy, black, noiseless. The roar of the rapids muted by sheer distance. Somewhere a rock is tumbling; somewhere a lizard is crunching a beetle. But not here. Here she is in a vacuum of solitude. She could scream and never be heard. She could fall and never be found.

that saved a wretch like me.

Her toes push some sandstone gravel over the rim. The pebbles fall until she can no longer see them. Nothing to catch them but beauty. Nothing to save them but faith. She closes her eyes and remembers from where she came. She remembers the lies. She remembers the smile she glued on her face, remembers the tears it covered. Her eyes close, and she breathes.

I once was lost

She can imagine the grasses of the east. The blades blow in the wind, waving, pushing, whispering for her to leave. The flattened land stretches on forever in her mind. It never stops, it never changes; it is always a sickening yellow-green. The taste of rotting vegetation fills her mouth. She opens her eyes and gags. Her knees tremble, her legs buckle, she falls to the hardened ground. Her skin tears against the prickling needles of stone. She bites her lip and begins to cry, her fingernails digging into the dusts of time.

but now am found.

A shadow flickers across her face. She feels the slightest of breezes and looks to see the blurred vision of the condor, the biggest and strangest of the desert birds soaring high above. He swoops and circles, playing catch with the rainbow of the setting sun. She thinks she can hear him laughing. Thinks she can see him smile. His wings brush the lining of the clouds; his claws curl at the tickle of the passing currents. She ponders what it is like to feel the wind rushing between her toes. He slowly dips down and lands beside her, so close that she can stare into the golden liquid of his right eye.

T’was blind

Her lashes blink away the last of her sorrow. She watches the bird watching her. Her hand reaches out to touch him, but he is frightened. She pulls back and gently swings her legs out in front of her. Both feet dangle over the edge of the abyss. He studies her movements and cocks his head. His wings spread out to shade her, and then he takes off, grasping the last of her fears within his sharp talons. Suddenly she feels light again. How she felt when she first came to the canyon.

but now I see.

Her arms raise up toward the sky; her lungs draw in the parched air. She swallows the splendor. Licks the ice cream, smells the juice of the cobbler, tastes the syrup of the fruit-filled cake. Feels the silence, hears her heart beat against the tranquility of the evening. Cliffs all around her glow in the fading light, reaching out to her, talking to her, welcoming her. The sun quivers as it gives up its final rays of fire. She sees the shadows creeping up and drinks in the last of the day. Her palms press against the edge. Her feet reach for a surface they will never feel. A child too small for her chair. She closes her eyes, opens her eyes. Thrusts her body forward into the void.

Nothing to catch her but beauty. Nothing to save her but faith.