Saturday, October 27, 2007

Who Made Sedona?

Rocks are grey or brown
everywhere except here
Arizona stole some red
intended for Mars

The sculptor here
not water or ice but
a lonely arid wind
defying convention

No regard for scale or accessibility
top heavy phallic chimneys
unsupported floors and roofs
overhanging liabilities

Myriad life forms abide
birds take unreachable ledges
plants the soft white seams
scorpions build cities in cracks

Homo sapiens, the valley floor
hiding his complex trappings
with rounded shapes
And rock-red paint

Bright cars, flat black roads
fragrant juniper smoke
and never-ending noise
herald the most arrogant animal.

(WRM)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kia

Anonymous said...

One of my most favorite places, just looked at photos of our last visit there the other day. Words can't describe what it's like. We stay up on the butte a few thousand yards from the airport/restaurant, where you look out over the city/valleys. Truly a breathtaking place that sticks in your memory.

Di

Anonymous said...

Praising Arizona.

Once upon a pre-cambrian time,
Under a shallow tropical coral sea,
Arizona lay nearer the equator,
Subject to submarine volcanic activity.

Tides ebbed and flowed, as silt was laid down,
From the Rocky Mountain streams,
With red iron staining the sandstone,
Interspersed with white limestone seams.

Today after wind, ice and water erosion,
The buttes stand silhouetted against the sky.
Immortalised in cinematography.
As the land where the cowboys and indians die.

Erosion still continues, along the Mogollon Rim,
Doomed to make one vast Grand Canyon,
A glass promontary built at the brim,
The better to view the work of nature,
Nature beyond man's control;
An amazing natural phenomenon,
Arizona's soul.
j

Anonymous said...

I've been to Sedona.
It was made pre 2005.
Was it God, using up odd bits & pieces?
g