The cows we could have counted—the curious one, the wandering trio,
the mother intent on intercepting us before we neared her young ones;
and the other animals would have been easy enough—one prairie dog,
a single antelope, a few horses, a couple of lizards, and some birds,
the latter more heard than seen.
The yuccas, though, were a different story—if you’ve seen one, you’re
about to see another—their heads held high in early morning, still
fresh-faced from the night; likewise, the prickly pears, a thorny presence
always and everywhere, withholding their sunshiney flowers until
high noon has come and gone.
And the rocks, of course, no chance of counting those—every size
and many colors: the namesake volcanic black, plus brown and red
and grey and tan.
The trail to the middle of nowhere from the parking lot next to it
lengthens in the open space like a sleepy cat stretching on the bed,
but the climb, when you finally start it, is something, something worth
the trouble, even in the summer heat, for the wild-western landscapes
rolling toward the horizon.
On top, there’s not much–just a more polished rock with words on it
standing on an expanse of prairie grass, with views
mainly of the sky you could have seen from the bottom, even if
it is only a few miles from one adjacent state and a thousand feet
or so from another.
But in this place, the glory accompanies your descent rather than your rise,
your reward the vistas of pale green prairie punctuated by stubby evergreens,
with more rocky hills and mesas piled up above it all.
The bottom, unfortunately, is not the end; it’s a long, hot walk back
to the car. But driving away, a glance in the rearview recalls
all those western TV shows and films from a childhood in the Seventies,
a scene I can always see without needing to watch—a lone horseman
or war party at the edge of the mesa top, surveying the unsuspecting
camp below, just before the trouble starts.
Those times have faded, their stereotypes now troubling and their
on-screen idealizations no longer popular, with the real Natives displaced
and the real cowboys a breed dying away like the deserted towns
along the endless highway.
But still, there’s something more here than just the grazing cows
and cacti. Call it what you will—a spirit, a vision, a faded ideal, a collective
unconscious memory—but, whatever name you give it, it’s something
untethered, a little wild, roaming free.
Copyright 2021
T. Allen Culpepper
Poetry When It Comes 