The Show Goes On...

This is for my friend, X, a man of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, whose dad just passed away. It is meant to float up like smoke and disappear into the sky, as it is not something to talk directly about. This man, 6'4" of lankiness, fought 6 different bouts with cancer, and, back in the day, was a lawyer with his wife during the power days of the AIM, and saw some amazing and horrible things come to pass.

Bpae TuaaH
(deer meat)

There is no doubt
That we all belong to each other.
There is no doubt
That one day we will face off with ourselves.
Point cold, heartless handguns to the face.
As we both pull the tiny triggers, ever so slowly; I am you.
You can be me.
No doubt.

Like an old time, romantic, black and white movie playing
Across the screen;
The end credits are rolling on the plaintive theme,
"We are over;"
Progressing into curious, unknown,
Shadowy fragments of a decaying body,
Lying on sepia-toned melting snow,
A quaint picture show,
Walking together to the dead end.

We are older; stretched;
Strung like a new bow,
However with the same gut string;
Pulling, pulling; until the evil,
Heart-breaking crack.

In the distance a bald eagle is soaring,
Airborne above an outlying thicket of juniper trees,
Circling to see the remnants
Of a curious deathblow;
Dry blood, wet with the thawing snow.
I have no doubt.
Soar like the eagle.
Have no fear.
Die vivaciously.
Give way to the tumbling departure,
The degeneration.
Back to the most wet, moist, merciful earth.
I have no doubt. We will all end up there:
Uneventfully.

Our movie is one of pathetic, prophetic love.

- Reyes Kristina Wind


I climbed the foothill today, the snow on the south side melting into the slope, into the rocks and tenacious bushes, cholla plants, and willows. It was warmer than it has been in a while, the sun disappearing behind velvet gray and purple clouds. Slushy in the bottomlands, hard-skinned higher up with softness underneath. Hardness broken, something collapsing all around, tired, ready to give in. There was nobody on the trail today. The only humans I saw were at the bottom, a woman, Shira, with a silver nose ring, had backed her white Subaru into the deep snow of the parking lot at the trailhead. I pushed the back of her car while a craggy, dark-skinned man with the tell-tale Taoseno lilt hit reverse in his big, white pickup, and chained to the Subaru, pulled it out. She offered me a heaping salad in a plastic dish, pepperoncinis piled on top, but I said my fridge was full and maybe the truck guy needed it more. She thrust it out to him and he snatched it quickly, a brief smile passing his lips. She thanked us and he nodded holding out the salad like it was a prize and I rubbed her jacketed shoulder. "No problem."

With the lower light and thinking about X, I curved around the west side of the mountain and saw the sun setting in the clear slit on the horizon. It spread a peach and green light on a shelf of snow leaning up off the trail. This spot is well below where I do my prayers to the mountain, but I was feeling logy, and the snow looked too good to pass up, so I lay down, breaking the hard surface and forming the snow around my ass, legs, back, shoulders and head. I had to do it. No wind. No birds (birds don't stir at sunset here, they watch in reverence, too). My head looking straight up to the curve-tipped clouds sliding west to east. Mmmmmm, I felt in my chest, good breaths, deep ins and slow outs, pauses in between. Other than a creeping, cool wetness through my jeans into my butt cheeks, I felt disappeared. I closed my eyes thinking that I could easily spend the night right here and be woken with new snow on my nose and an elk bending over to lick my forehead. The icy granular snow woke me when I made a natural turnover move, flipping from my back to my right side, my right cheek looking to nuzzle the pillow and finding ice instead. It was still dusk, but barely. I didn't have my backpack with the headlamp, so I had to shake it off and boogie on down the trail. It wasn't hard as it was still warm, the clouds keeping the temperature from dropping, and I cut off large swaths of the trail by bushwacking through the switchbacks.

There's a knot in my center as I write. I'm drifting. I see green water and white caps spilling over the tops of waves. I listened to NPR on the way home when I should have listened to Radiohead, or nothing. Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, a terrible fire in Karachi, Pakistan. People killing, dying. It reminded me of being a little child and listening to the daily body counts from Vietnam on my Sony transistor radio and then on my mom's faux wood-paneled radio in the kitchen while eating my cereal and english muffin. Even then I couldn't understand why. Even then I wondered what was the use. One of my camp counselors left after the summer of '71 and did not come back the next summer. The flag was at half mast for the 3 or 4 years I went to this camp. It was normal, and it wasn't. Body counts on the radio. Not so different now.

Where am I my going with this? It's 8:58 and I'm sad. It was a good day, things are happening, being accomplished, being given and received. I have loving friends coming over tomorrow to hike down to the river and dip in the hot springs along the edge. Great projects are moving forward. My head is clear and I'm living in circadian rhythm. Yes, and I woke thinking of my friend, X, and his distant voice last night. This is not something to talk about. This is not something to dwell on.