There's something about the Southwest that touches me, and not just with a caress. It's more like a strong arm pulling me in, and I have to surrender. Maybe it's the metal in the rocks that magnetizes me to this place. Maybe it's the way the land lays itself out nakedly, not afraid to show its bones. When I'm there, I don't need to speak, because the stones speak so eloquently. The last time I was deep in Capitol Reef National Park, a remote part of Utah that is not to be missed, a poem came to me from the rocks as they always do. (I seem to be taking dictation when I am there, even though poems do not regularly make themselves known in my daily life).
My husband and I did a recommitment ceremony under our own special arch, the kind of place where I would have preferred to get married in the first place, and I wrote a poem for the occasion. Somehow love and nature always seem merged to me in the Southwest, but this can be any kind of love: romantic, love for the self, or even a love affair with the land.
The truth is revealed here,
the spine of the land
laid out in divine plan.
Honest rocks share their stories
in sunset stone, and
sacred sage blesses our being.
Though we go through narrows
of tear-stained walls,
we always emerge
to wren-song and water.
An arch of stone
protects our marriage,
layers of memory
made solid by years,
beautiful by wind.
As we leave this place
to walk through the world,
let us remember this
bridge of safety
always above us,
an angel of knowing stone.
Copyright 2007 by Laura Girardeau
Laura, what a joyful, hopeful poem! I love the way the land embraces you in the photo, and the way that strength is reflected in the poem that came to you from the rocks. Susan
Posted by: Susan Albert | June 21, 2007 at 07:55 AM
that was incredible...what beautiful words..msy
Posted by: mary yaus | June 23, 2007 at 08:44 AM