Big Bend National Park
29°15′0″N 103°15′0″W
I sit on an outcrop in Santa Elena Canyon,
the Rio Grande sliding past.
Midday sunlight stipples the current
and shifts across the towering cliffs,
picking out fractures in the stone.
I drive the winding road into the Chisos,
the ridges above me immense and still.
Ocotillo and sotol cling to the slopes,
giving way to junipers, pines, and oaks,
each drawing life from this ancient ground.
I hike to the view at South Rim,
where the mountains stretch deep into Mexico,
each ridge fading into another.
Blue shadows gather in their folds,
and the Rio Grande is a silver thread below.
These rocks remember what I cannot:
oceans that covered this place,
volcanic fire and the patient work of water,
the earth’s deep record, petrified,
yet still changing beneath the vastness of the sky.
Then night comes without the glow of cities.
Stars burn above the desert,
the Milky Way arching over the Chisos.
I can almost feel the earth turning,
carrying my brief life through the dark.
