The Raven and the Rocks

Two days later, we Louisianians drove to the GRAND CANYON where it was 18 degrees and windy as windy. We got there late, midnight late, so as to avoid any pesky fees, willed ourselves out of the van with tequila and accusations of weenie-ness, and poked around the visitor's center for a secluded spot where we could plop our sleeping bags down on the frigid ground for the night. We cinched our mummy bags up around our faces and peeped out at the stars like upturned slugs and cursed loudly each time we had to battle the frozen tundra in order to pee.

We woke in the early dawn to the sounds of two startling things: a roving heard of elk and a tour bus with rosy tourists looking down at us no doubt hearing the guide say, "And here is where the hippies who don't want to pay stay."

Believe them us, 30 cold toes is payment enough.

We scarfed some grub, read a harrowing story at our trailhead about a marathon runner who died hiking the unbelievably formidable canyon trails, then headed DOOOOWWWNN into the GRAND FREAKING CANYON singing "The Big Rock Candy Mountain."

Oh, how uncandylike the canyon was. It was like walking on Mars (and I would know): rocks, rocks, rocks, rocks, rocks. Red rocks, ochre rocks, pink rocks, white rocks, grey rocks, maroon rocks, striped rocks, rocks lined with crystals, with lichen, with hidden cacti. No birds, no sounds, dry plants few and far between, and rocks, rocks, rocks. Cold and rocky rocks. Rolling and round and flat and rigid rocks. Gargantuan towering rocks and teeny gravelly rocks and boulders and cliffs and rocks.

We looked on utterly perplexed by a dude coming up the trail, the only other person we saw that day, wearing only a T-shirt while we descended in long underwear, fleece sweaters and down jackets. What a freakin freak, we thought. Must be from Canada, someone said.

We went down for decades. Then We climbed the Horshoe Mesa. Just for variation. It was high and redder than most of the rocks around us. It jutted up from a flat shelf a few hundred feet into a horshoe-shaped plateau. Left our packs hidden behind a boulder and scrambled up the rockface. Yelled things from the top, threw rocks. At awkward spot, a chunk of red rock broke off in my right hand. A thrill of fear ran through me, my foot found the perch I'd been searching for, I clung hard with my left. A spill of dust and crystals jingled down past my face then feet then the 30 foot fall.

I heard the voice of the park ranger we registered with on the way in: DON'T take any souveniers from the canyon. But how all our friends at home would enjoy these small tokens of affection. They were busy at their jobs and here we were, practically on Mars, and crystals everywhere--thousands, millions, billions! So I pocketed seven or so, silently, and up and up I went.

When the three of us stood at the bottom again, we looked up at where we'd been. The mesa conquered, we marvelled at our physical prowess a minute. We chewed satsumas in the barren, empty, awesome landscape, feeling big and then small again, fragile, intimidated. In front of the mesa lay a deeply red sudan-sized boulder and a black and twisted tree, like a sculpture of contrasts against the massive mesa.

Just then, a big wild Raven came descending from the East. Black against the red, it hailed us loudly and dove down for the tree. It lit beside the boulder. It cocked its head. It looked at me, it spoke in a bold and penetrating sqawk.

SQAWK.

I looked at Keith, I looked at Scott, the Raven looked at me. I took the rocks from my pocket. I said to them: I took these crystals from the Mesa.

"I think you better go put them back," Scott said. Keith said, "I think so."

I ran, I stumbled, I threw myself upon the rock, climbed up, and quickly, lay the seven crystal stones in a circle.

As I finished, the Raven took wing--so darkly, so lightly--and left the way it came.

Canefields to Cowfields

On the Friday before Thanksgiving break, we teachers--Mr. Stephenson, Dr. Erwin, and I, turned back into Scott, Keith and Bon(FIYAH) and left directly from school for California. We drove 30 hours straight through--from canefields to cowfields, all the way to Califor-nigh-ay, yes indeedy.

We showed up ragged at Alex and Jeff's house in one of those concrete-and-beachy-beach cities south of L.A. I hit the sack pronto, but the boys started laying down the funk as soon as I got curled up for a good 12 hour shut-eye. Jeff's jazzychillman drumming, Alex's deepgroove bass, and Scott's lickable guitar licks got my flute so hot and bothered it started yelling at me through three shut doors to get up out the bed and blow it right damn now. So not five minutes down, I upped and did. Sleep can suck funk's blue notes.

In sum, California rocked.