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The Canyon's Edge

Page 5

by Dusti Bowling


  with muddy hands, and I wait,

  but the water doesn’t pool.

  I fall back and stare at my stupid hole,

  the mud tossed around the edges.

  Breathing hard, sweating.

  Hair blanketing my face.

  My heel still throbbing from the cactus needle.

  It’s always harder than I expect.

  BEFORE AND AFTER

  I sit and think and breathe

  and twist one long strand

  of hair around my finger.

  I hold the strand in front of my face

  and stare at the clear line of my

  Before and After hair,

  where my life broke

  into two parts,

  so easily identifiable,

  like a ring in a tree thinner than the rest,

  indicating a drought occurred that year

  in the high desert, forcing the people

  to move on to another place.

  A park ranger taught us that at Montezuma Castle,

  when the three of us used to adventure.

  The foot of hair from the tip

  is my Before hair.

  It’s streaked with gold, red, brown, and blond,

  as though it’s reflecting

  the colors of the canyon,

  vivid and shining and alive,

  grown during a time

  of safety, love, and adventure.

  My Before hair is

  hair my mother would have touched

  when she was asking me about my school day

  or telling me a new story idea.

  My Before hair is

  hair Danielle would have braided into a fishtail

  while we watched movies in the middle of the night,

  hair she would have rubbed lemon into

  before we lay out by the pool together.

  My Before hair is

  hair that would have been

  regularly washed, brushed, and styled.

  The six inches of hair from the root

  is my After hair.

  My After hair is

  irregularly washed, brushed, and never styled,

  except to be put up in a ponytail.

  My After hair is

  only one shade, having been kept in the dark,

  unchanged by desert days

  filled with chlorine and sun and adventure.

  My After hair has never been touched

  by Mom or Danielle.

  How can I do this?

  How can I make it

  through the canyon

  with all of this Before and After

  in my face the entire way?

  A DRINK

  An idea finally comes.

  I need to separate

  sand and water.

  Filter. Strain.

  I remove my white tank top

  and lay it on the ground.

  I scoop handfuls of mud onto my shirt,

  fold it up like a sack,

  and hold it over my head,

  opening my mouth widely,

  my chapped lips tight and stinging.

  I squeeze.

  It’s quiet in the canyon,

  except for the buzzing of a fly

  that has found me.

  It whirs around my tossed-back head,

  making me feel even dizzier

  while brown water trickles into my mouth.

  I don’t have anything better

  than this dirty tank top to filter it.

  No iodine tablets to purify it.

  No fire to boil it.

  But I’ll be out of here

  before sickness has time to set in.

  CARRIED AWAY

  The short amount of direct sunlight

  has already burned my white shoulders.

  I take some mud and slather it on my

  stinging skin, dab it under my eyes

  before moving on.

  Keeping track of the time is difficult

  when I can’t see the sun.

  The line of sunlight along one canyon wall

  is now rising.

  Three o’clock?

  Four o’clock?

  Where is Dad?

  How can we not have

  found each other by now?

  I feel as if I’ve walked

  a hundred miles.

  And then I see color ahead,

  coiled in an uprooted palo verde

  like a bright red snake.

  As I near it, my heart leaps.

  I throw my hands up to my muddy face

  and laugh out loud

  before skipping the last few steps to the tree.

  The limbs

  scratch and slice,

  mar and mangle,

  injure and inflame

  my arms and legs.

  Its slender, green branches

  snap and slash,

  lick and lash,

  whip and welt

  my face.

  Its thorny claws

  clasp and catch,

  tug and tear,

  rip and rend

  my long hair.

  I hardly feel any of it.

  All I feel is my heart pounding in excitement

  as I continue unraveling the rope

  from the tree that carried it away.

  It’s probably taken me over an hour

  to get the rope free, my arms and legs

  now as layered in shades of red

  as the canyon walls,

  my long strands of hair

  fluttering in the branches,

  my face stinging with scrapes.

  But I don’t care.

  I couldn’t leave it behind.

  This rope might mean so much to us.

  PATTERNS

  Apophenia:

  trying to find a pattern

  when there isn’t one.

  SEARCHING

  You enjoy poetry. Right, Eleanor?

  I like my mom’s poetry.

  Have you heard of Gerard Manley Hopkins?

  No.

  He was a poet who would sit on a cliff

  and sketch sea waves, wave after wave after wave,

  to see whether one ever repeated.

  Why?

  He was searching for a pattern.

  He believed if he sketched the same wave twice,

  it would be proof.

  Proof of what?

  That there really was a god.

  Perhaps that’s why we have such a need

  to find patterns, a reason for everything.

  Do you think you’re searching for a pattern?

  Always.

  And so I watch the canyon walls as I walk.

  Waves made of

  sand and stone

  instead of

  salt water.

  I look down at the ground,

  at looser gray sand running in waves

  over the crackled, light pink silt.

  Looking for patterns in the waves

  of the ground.

  Looking for patterns in the waves

  of the walls.

  I’m searching for repeats, reproductions, replicas.

  And I know if I find one, it will comfort me.

  It will mean this is all happening for a reason.

  This has all been designed by a designer.

  But my vision is blurry and my mind is fuzzy.

  I can’t make out the details in the walls or ground,

  especially when the light in the canyon

  begins to dim.

  DRYING

  I fall back to the ground

  and push my fingers in,

  but the ground hardly gives.

  I pull the sharp shale from my pocket

  and plunge it into the earth,

  grasping the rock with both hands,

  trying to shovel the dirt

  out of the hardening soil.

  I remove my tank top again,

&nbs
p; scoop small mounds of damp dirt into it.

  Once more, I fold it up

  and squeeze it over my mouth,

  longing for another drizzle of dirty water.

  But all I get this time is drops.

  STILL

  I still haven’t found Dad.

  Dad still hasn’t found me.

  He must have been carried

  very far, but we have to be,

  we have to be,

  much closer to finding each other.

  I cry out for him once more.

  Maybe he can hear me now.

  But all that comes back

  is the echo of my own voice.

  What if

  he’s not coming?

  What if

  he’s badly hurt?

  What if

  he’s unconscious?

  What if

  he’s—

  Focusing on what-ifs

  helps nothing, Eleanor.

  PROTECTION

  Searching around boulders

  and scanning the canyon walls

  for any kind of inlet,

  I look for a place, a hidden place,

  that will guard me from the night winds.

  Down here in the canyon,

  I am completely hidden, and yet,

  it seems there’s nowhere to hide.

  I finally find a large boulder

  with a good-sized outcropping.

  I bend down and peek under it,

  hoping it’s big enough to tuck myself

  into its safety.

  It is, but my head drops,

  my heart sinks, my shoulders slump.

  It’s filled with thorny twigs,

  and more important,

  cholla balls buried in the mud.

  Someone was already living

  under this rock before it got destroyed:

  a pack rat.

  Like the cactus wren, the pack rat

  uses the vicious spines of the cholla

  to protect itself.

  I think of the cactus wren

  and her constant, quick

  ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.

  I think of her nest, surrounded by,

  supported by, the arms of the cholla.

  She uses pain as protection.

  I guess I can understand,

  but no human being could bear to sleep

  in a bed of cholla.

  ONE CALORIE

  I find another hidden place and peer inside.

  It’s too small for me, but…

  Yes! Thank you.

  I reach inside and pull out

  the mesquite beans,

  a couple slipping through my jittery fingers

  and falling to the canyon floor.

  I’ve stumbled upon an animal’s hoard,

  something to eat, to ease the cramping

  in my empty stomach.

  I don’t care how old they are.

  I don’t care how dirty they are.

  I am starving.

  I shake the pods

  so I can hear the stone-hard seeds,

  small and shaped like a sunflower’s.

  They rattle like the snake,

  so I know the pods are ready to eat.

  I shove one slender bean in my mouth

  and bite down, snapping the pod in half,

  then chewing, trying to get to the edible

  part of the pod, the pulp, the pith.

  As woody as a stick,

  sweet like syrup gone bad, sucking

  every calorie I can before spitting

  out the hard seeds and sawdust,

  which coats all of my sore tongue

  and sticks between every tooth.

  Spitting so much out that I wonder

  whether any is sinking into my stomach.

  One calorie.

  Maybe two.

  But one is better than none.

  I shove the few remaining

  pods in my pockets

  to save for later.

  DIMMING

  The sky continues to dim.

  Soon it will be dark again,

  and I still haven’t found shelter.

  I still haven’t found Dad.

  Then I hear the booms

  and freeze in fear.

  More storms. More water.

  I can’t sleep on the canyon floor.

  I pick up as much speed as I can,

  jogging and stumbling,

  panting and dizzy,

  trying to beat

  the fading light.

  It might happen again.

  Dad’s face filled with terror.

  There won’t be any moonlight.

  My body frozen in fear.

  I won’t see the ground to run away.

  Tremors beneath our feet.

  I won’t see the walls to climb them.

  Shuddering all around us.

  I will hear it.

  Roaring like a train.

  I will feel it.

  Trembling like an earthquake.

  But I won’t see it coming.

  Enormous wall of water.

  ANXIETY

  Flash.            Boom!

  My breathing speeds

  out of control

  as my anxiety

  rises as high

  as the towering walls

  of the canyon,

  growing grayer

  with

  every

  passing

  minute.

  Flash.        Boom!

  And then I stop,

  trying to catch my breath,

  throwing my head back,

  gasping for air.

  There.

  I see it.

  A place

  large enough for me

  in the canyon wall.

  Could something be living in there?

  I squint, focus my eyes, don’t see anything

  but those white drips Dad pointed out.

  Bats.

  If any have tucked themselves in the corners,

  I’ll scare them away.

  Flash. Boom!

  But the fluttering in my stomach and heart

  doesn’t stop.

  Flash. Boom!

  Because this refuge

  is about twenty feet up.

  FREE SOLO

  Eleanor, do you ever feel reckless?

  As the canyon walls cool, and the distant booms become louder, the wind picks up

  and brushes my chilled arms.

  No, I’m very careful.

  I know now how easily I can die.

  I study the cave, spot a rock jutting out

  near the opening I can tie the rope around

  to lower myself back down later.

  You don’t ever feel like you’re invincible?

  I remove my boots and socks,

  tying the boot laces together

  and slinging them over my shoulder,

  the socks stuffed inside.

  Not really. Sometimes it just feels

  like I don’t care. So yeah, maybe that’s reckless.

  I tie the rope in a loop and wear it across

  my chest like a cross-shoulder bag.

  You don’t care? About what?

  I’ve never climbed

  without rope,

  without rock shoes,

  without chalk,

  without a harness,

  without a belayer

  standing at the bottom,

  taking up my slack

  and keeping me safe

  so I don’t plummet to the earth.

  About… me. About my life.

  This will be the first wall I’ve ever climbed

  with nothing but myself,

  with my hair in my face the whole way to the top.

  Sometimes I feel like I don’t care at all.

  Like none of it matters.

  Like my life doesn’t matter.


  I know I could die if I fall.

  But usually I’m very cautious.

  Break a leg, and I’ll be left to drown.

  I never really feel…

  But I don’t think I’ll live anyway

  if I stay down here one more night.

  In-between.

  TERRIFIED

  I braid my tangled hair

  and hope it will stay back.

  I bend down and rub

  dirt between my hands

  since I have no chalk.

  Running my bare feet over the dirt,

  I scan the wall under the cave,

  looking for any cracks

  I can slip my fingers into.

  Just a small crack will do.

  My hair is already

  breaking free of its braid.

  I work out the ascent in my mind,

  squinting in the deepening twilight,

  following a path

  from the ground to the cave.

  Slipping my fingers into a crack

  and finding a small foothold,

  I pull myself up.

  Good.

  One step at a time, Eleanor.

  I find another foothold and move

  one hand above the other in the crack.

  My parents lived for this

  when they were both living.

  Right now, more than ever,

  I wish I had Dad’s skill,

  Mom’s passion.

  They met on the face

  of a thousand-foot-tall cliff.

  They spent their honeymoon

  zip-lining over rainforests.

  They rafted the whitewater

  of the Colorado.

  They paraglided off mountains

  and into canyons.

  They strapped me to their backs

  when I was an infant and hiked

  the Grand Canyon.

  They taught me everything they knew

  about the desert, hoping I would one day

  love it as much as they did.

  My parents

  rappelled, climbed, hiked

 

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