Vision Quest: Day One

I watch my blood mingle with the cold silty water of the Escalante,
On it's way to filling the nooks and crannies of the damned Glen Canyon.
This unexpected vision come so soon
With four more days and nights of fasting and prayer still to come.
Four days and nights to sit on this high butte, to contemplate death,
Come without appointment, to ponder the meaning of this life.

I sit.

and watch, as the light of sun and moon move across the slick-rock canyon cliffs
as meandering streams of the early Mississippian, 320 million years ago
deposit their limestone sediments, weathered from eastern peaks
On this one low coastal plain.

Who will pay the mortgage?

Before my eyes oceans from the west rise and fall repeatedly
Laying down the Watahomigi, Manakacha, and Wescogasme.
The Pennsylvanian: a mere 50 million years.

Who will comfort my loved ones?

Hermit formation and Schnebly Hill, Coconino, Toroweap and Kaibab
Layer after layer of western windblown sandstone, deeper and deeper
As more millions of years pass.

What was I sent here to do?
What will happen to my soul when "I" leave this body of silica and alumina,
Tin and iron, calcium and copper?

Finally the Great Mother takes a deep in-breath, raising these layers high above the sea.
And as she breathes out, with a flourish she carves a deep and jagged canyon signature,
Exposing wise brown-streaked cliffs

These cliffs, these all seeing elders, who now notice this visitor,
this cloud shadow brushing their shoulders, no more than
a blink of their eyes.

And "I"
Suddenly
Cannot stop laughing.

Alan Steinberg