In the Canyon of the Bird

There are many ways to tell
about this canyon.

Here is one way.

The man dropped
from ledge to ledge
until he reached a
long bench of sandstone
that stretched lateral
toward a pour-off that
could be scrambled
down. There was snow-
melt running which
was pooled enough
for him to fill his
bottles. Afterward he
toed the slickrock to
the bottom into a stand
of leafless cottonwood
and sage. The wash
wound its way ahead
and he gazed up
seven hundred feet
at the juniper along
the rim. He'd saved
himself some time by
improvising this descent
rather than follow the
canyon bottom in.
And he knew there
was climbing yet to
do to reach the alcove
at the end.

Here is one way.

The man knelt beside
a pool of clear snow-
melt and gathered up
cold handfuls to his
mouth: in this way he
slaked his thirst and
reached up his arms
with dripping jowls and
closed his eyes in order
to accept the birds
which sudden flapped
and dove upon his
face and ate his head
with deft and noisesome
cruelty such that
afterward his body
stood for days still
knelt beside the pool
atop the pour-off in
outstretched dumb and
headless rigor.

Here is one way.

The man dreams of a
canyon that he's never
visited but knows well
somehow which holds
to use and where and
it's quiet such that there
is only the flap of each
crow's wing a quarter-
mile away. The alcove
is above he understands
and that also it contains
the painting of a birded-
head procession and a
quadruped withchild
and domesticated dogs
and the hunters with
not-yet-arrows and a
spiral whorl at the center
of it that wheels alone
before the senseless
dark so that nothing
will be swallowed other
than the light without
which they can sightless
and unseeing instead
of deaf endure the
ceaseless and unpitying
roar.