Post by goldenmyst on Aug 14, 2022 21:22:35 GMT -6
bedouin angels in love with the world
My hands grip the wheel with religious fervor. The morning miles take my beloved and me deeper into the land of enchantment where mesas rise like tables upon which our feast of beauty is to begin.
Rowena takes her window down and leans her head into the wind making her hair scatter in the breeze. She smiles as we veer off the main stretch onto the back roads. Our junket takes us through ancient Spanish towns. In Mora, a group of men pushes a car across the road and we onlookers gaze in wonder on our pause. The jalopy yields to their strength as it rolls to its destination at the repair shop across the highway.
Rowena says, “Love where your inner map is taking us.”
“You are the muse for my poem in motion.”
We dip and swerve into unexpected vistas. Having left the desert mesas we find ourselves in a land of fir trees on gentle slopes. Soon we follow a roaring river upward and onward into lodgepole pines where the water takes us to its source.
We seek a golden moment for lost adobe whose tremble of history echoes under the colored chalk of sky on the southern spine of a Sangre De Cristo where no blood of Christ flows among the clear mountain streams.
New Mexican snowfields open up in alpine country. My head pounds in the thin air but with the dawning reality of altitude sickness. I ask, “Rowena, is your head hurting?”
She nods, “No.” Altitude sickness is upon me but my wife is fit as a fiddle.
I take the driver’s seat once more but am soon to abdicate my throne. We follow the highway into snowy hills on our alpine trek. We cross the ridge into a canyon where my nauseous head swims in a sea of pain. And so the time has come for Rowena to lead this expedition. I tell her to find a motel. As we cross the Taos city limits I turn the car over to her. She finds shelter for my heavy head.
For three days I am bedridden. She navigates a strange city whose streets she knows not to bring us food until my throbbing head finds peace under her gentle touch. I am very very proud of my lady who found her way on streets unknown.
She brings a lunch of tofu rice pilaf. “Taos has more health food stores than conventional grocery ones. This is my kind of place. Let’s settle down here and grow old dining on barbeque tempeh.”
“I was fortunate to have recovered. You know altitude sickness can rob you of your golden years.”
“Spoken by a man who was a Colorado mountain goat in his youth. You were made for the mountains.”
“You are being strong for me.”
“For both of us actually. Why didn’t you have me drive us to a lower altitude? That is the textbook solution for altitude sickness.”
“It was getting toward dusk when the mountain spirits haunt drivers.”
“I believe those are benevolent ghosts who guide travelers safely.”
I emerge into the sunshine. I drive us up into a canyon above the town. There we pitch a tent and settle into our new rhythms. After lunch, we explore our new zone of reality. We climb the mountainside and discover a cave with a slab of ice.
The next day we put on our hiking shoes and ascend the opposite wall of our canyon. This serpentine path takes us zig-zagging on a dry trail until we encounter a man with a llama. We decide this is the highlight of this hike and descend on our dusty footwear back to the campsite.
“I am very proud of you for keeping a cool head in my time of deepest need.”
“Outwardly yes. But I didn’t want to lose you. That is what drove me to find the nourishment you needed. I didn’t fancy driving home through the lonely Texas panhandle without you to keep my tears at bay.”
“It was no worse than a migraine.”
“But Tylenol is like a sugar pill for what you had. And the potential for hemorrhaging had me catastrophizing.”
We pack up and head back to Taos for a tour. We are late but a Native guide drives us to catch up with the group. Rowena tells him, “Your state is so beautiful.”
He replies, “Yours is too.”
Rowena replies, “Have you ever been to Louisiana?”
He answers, “I drove a truck through there.”
I say, “Perhaps we belong in the southerly region of the heart where Patagonia lies.”
Rowena replies, “Even Tierra Del Fuego isn’t far enough away for us.”
Rowena poses by adobe churches for my camera with a smile which tells me her closeness to nature will be nourished by these memories until we become sacred Ibises on a holy journey along the Nile River of love into the Mediterranean where our azure souls are reborn together.
Santa Clara Pueblo gathers the moss from our eyes with suspension globe clouds like carrier pigeons with secret messages on a flight path from Cibola that bears the lost language of Anasazi pilgrims whose meaning is not lost in translation for travelers while sitting on the porch of eternity.
“Where can I get a photography permit?”
“Do you want to photograph real live Indians?”
Hugs embrace the wild New Mexican grass with poses like roses winding across the trellis where holy rubies congregate in hourglass heaven.
And so we take the road home like vagabonds on the streets of El Dorado.
My hands grip the wheel with religious fervor. The morning miles take my beloved and me deeper into the land of enchantment where mesas rise like tables upon which our feast of beauty is to begin.
Rowena takes her window down and leans her head into the wind making her hair scatter in the breeze. She smiles as we veer off the main stretch onto the back roads. Our junket takes us through ancient Spanish towns. In Mora, a group of men pushes a car across the road and we onlookers gaze in wonder on our pause. The jalopy yields to their strength as it rolls to its destination at the repair shop across the highway.
Rowena says, “Love where your inner map is taking us.”
“You are the muse for my poem in motion.”
We dip and swerve into unexpected vistas. Having left the desert mesas we find ourselves in a land of fir trees on gentle slopes. Soon we follow a roaring river upward and onward into lodgepole pines where the water takes us to its source.
We seek a golden moment for lost adobe whose tremble of history echoes under the colored chalk of sky on the southern spine of a Sangre De Cristo where no blood of Christ flows among the clear mountain streams.
New Mexican snowfields open up in alpine country. My head pounds in the thin air but with the dawning reality of altitude sickness. I ask, “Rowena, is your head hurting?”
She nods, “No.” Altitude sickness is upon me but my wife is fit as a fiddle.
I take the driver’s seat once more but am soon to abdicate my throne. We follow the highway into snowy hills on our alpine trek. We cross the ridge into a canyon where my nauseous head swims in a sea of pain. And so the time has come for Rowena to lead this expedition. I tell her to find a motel. As we cross the Taos city limits I turn the car over to her. She finds shelter for my heavy head.
For three days I am bedridden. She navigates a strange city whose streets she knows not to bring us food until my throbbing head finds peace under her gentle touch. I am very very proud of my lady who found her way on streets unknown.
She brings a lunch of tofu rice pilaf. “Taos has more health food stores than conventional grocery ones. This is my kind of place. Let’s settle down here and grow old dining on barbeque tempeh.”
“I was fortunate to have recovered. You know altitude sickness can rob you of your golden years.”
“Spoken by a man who was a Colorado mountain goat in his youth. You were made for the mountains.”
“You are being strong for me.”
“For both of us actually. Why didn’t you have me drive us to a lower altitude? That is the textbook solution for altitude sickness.”
“It was getting toward dusk when the mountain spirits haunt drivers.”
“I believe those are benevolent ghosts who guide travelers safely.”
I emerge into the sunshine. I drive us up into a canyon above the town. There we pitch a tent and settle into our new rhythms. After lunch, we explore our new zone of reality. We climb the mountainside and discover a cave with a slab of ice.
The next day we put on our hiking shoes and ascend the opposite wall of our canyon. This serpentine path takes us zig-zagging on a dry trail until we encounter a man with a llama. We decide this is the highlight of this hike and descend on our dusty footwear back to the campsite.
“I am very proud of you for keeping a cool head in my time of deepest need.”
“Outwardly yes. But I didn’t want to lose you. That is what drove me to find the nourishment you needed. I didn’t fancy driving home through the lonely Texas panhandle without you to keep my tears at bay.”
“It was no worse than a migraine.”
“But Tylenol is like a sugar pill for what you had. And the potential for hemorrhaging had me catastrophizing.”
We pack up and head back to Taos for a tour. We are late but a Native guide drives us to catch up with the group. Rowena tells him, “Your state is so beautiful.”
He replies, “Yours is too.”
Rowena replies, “Have you ever been to Louisiana?”
He answers, “I drove a truck through there.”
I say, “Perhaps we belong in the southerly region of the heart where Patagonia lies.”
Rowena replies, “Even Tierra Del Fuego isn’t far enough away for us.”
Rowena poses by adobe churches for my camera with a smile which tells me her closeness to nature will be nourished by these memories until we become sacred Ibises on a holy journey along the Nile River of love into the Mediterranean where our azure souls are reborn together.
Santa Clara Pueblo gathers the moss from our eyes with suspension globe clouds like carrier pigeons with secret messages on a flight path from Cibola that bears the lost language of Anasazi pilgrims whose meaning is not lost in translation for travelers while sitting on the porch of eternity.
“Where can I get a photography permit?”
“Do you want to photograph real live Indians?”
Hugs embrace the wild New Mexican grass with poses like roses winding across the trellis where holy rubies congregate in hourglass heaven.
And so we take the road home like vagabonds on the streets of El Dorado.
