Desert, an hour out of San Diego (California)
A man looses his way on the path. He imagines a Palm Grove is up one ravine
rather than the other. He leads his friend up the ravine, this wrong one.
Skirting up and around enormous rocks. He stops to point out and relish the
vermillion boulders on the near horizon. He also points to a fishhook Barrel
Cactus. The hooked thorns bear a crimson cast. The Ocotillo plant in bloom:
crimson pink blossoms. The young Century Plant. Its whorl of potential
leaves spiral up the major stalk. The artichoke green, the lavender edges.
The trail, this wrong trail leads to lunch. Salami and goat cheese on bread
atop bright aluminum foil. The intense gold mica specs in the ground;
granite trail grit. Ten minutes further up to arrive at the ridge, the top
of the pass. To look down at the wash, a waste of rock in the next valley.
³I am so happy,² he says. ³Now you have seen two of the different kinds of
landscape.²
He who is also lost: A divorce. The death of close friends. An isolation.
³We are in a place,² he says, ³where itıs practically impossible to get
lost.²
I donıt quite believe him.
Stephen Vincent
Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
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