The Wind

I wrote this on the day that the author Edward Abbey died, March 14, 1989. My thoughts were revolving around him living in a trailer at Arches National Monument, (now a National Park), when he was a ranger there in 1956 and 1957. He told of sitting outside at night playing his flute and listening to the sounds of nature surrounding him. Those memories and so much more prompted me to write the poem.

...For Ed Abbey

Smoke twists from glowing juniper coals, a spiraling trail through the nighttime silence, beckoning.

Red bandanna banner, floating in the cool night air, anarchy in the wind swirling near an empty trailer.

Wind in the chimes, coyote in the distance. The howl, no longer riled by the bearded piper, echos off of red rock walls in a thousand screaming canyons and through the branches of a twisted juniper, at the edge...the rim of the canyon, the shore of the world, "To arms! To arms! Come to my arms, my love, my sweet."

Stinging, wind-blown sand against a supple, curving arch. An empty beer can tumbling across a bridge. Fluorescent streamers snapping from engineer's carefully planted stakes, pierced hard into Earth's ripped and bleeding flesh.

Blow across the waters, wind, and howl through the riggings of the dam that stops them.

Glide beneath the vulture's wings, and lift him high, high above the canyon walls.

Carry the howl of the coyote across the canyons for all to hear:

Vox Clamantis in Deserto.

One voice, howling in the wilderness.

Howl, wind.

Howl and never, ever stop.