I was here 64 years ago, 56 years ago, 6 years ago, and maybe other times I don’t recall. Memory becomes fuzzy; a menagerie of images dance in my head, without respect to time—a mesa I saw as a child, a path I stumbled on as an adult. The places appear constant, but I change, have changed, and will become one of the ghosts in due time.
I’ll be in good company: Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz; the artists, dreamers, and tourists who coalesce and disburse, coalesce and disburse.
I love to call these mountains immutable. Somehow that comforts me. I like to imagine that some things don’t change. But gazing at them now, for the first time I understand that they, too, have changed, are changing, and will change.
Every atom will be smashed. The universe is a recycle bin. I too will be recycled, however long before this rock.
Where do we go from here? Perhaps that’s what I’ve come here to learn. Put my feet on the path for as long as possible and seek answers that come in riddles if at all. Partial answers, partial truths, myths and legends, stories and rhymes.
Empty my head of thought, steel my heart for the reckoning. Hone my prayer for the last breath. May it be one of gratitude.
Beautiful and affecting, Aaron, as always. Thank you for articulating things that have been sitting on my doorstep lately.
Beautiful, as always!