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Show THE ZEPHYR/DEC-JAN PERFECT 2008 MOMENTS APRIL 1956 Well---the sun will be up in a few minutes and I haven’t even begun to make coffee. I take more baggage from my pickup, the grub box and cooking gear, re-enter the trailer and start breakfast. Simply breathing in a place like this arouses the appetite. The orange juice is still frozen, the milk slushy with ice. Still chilly enough inside the trailer to turn my breath to vapor. When the first rays of sun strike the cliffs I fill a mug with steaming coffee and sit in the doorway facing the sunrise, hungry for the warmth. Suddenly it comes, the flaming globe, blazing on the pinnacles and minarets and balanced rocks, on the canyon walls and through the windows in the sandstone fins. We greet each other, sun and I, across the black void of 93 million miles. The snow glitters between us, acres of diamonds almost painful to look at. Within an hour, all the snow exposed to the sunlight will be gone and the rock will be damp and steaming. Iam not alone. Three ravens are wheeling near the balanced rock, squawking at each other and at the dawn. I’m sure they’re as delighted by the return of the sun as | am and I wish I knew the language. I’d sooner exchange ideas with the birds on earth than learn to carry on intergalactic conversations with some obscure race of humanoids _ ona satelite planet from the world of Betelgeuse. First things first. The ravens cry out in husky voices, blue-black wings flapping against the golden sky. Over my shoulder comes the sizzle and smell of frying bacon. That's the way it was this morning. Edward Abbey Desert Solitaire permission to re-print from Clarke Abbey 13 |
