We came to explore.
We knew so little that it hardly mattered
which way we went.
The isolation of the canyon we’d be in
made locking the car seem unnecessary
though anyone could have driven
the dozen miles of quiet gravel road we’d come.
Jerry looked from the rim at the big view
and spotted a road I hadn’t seen,
a nearly perfect progression
of sulfur-colored flat rocks climbing up
the right hand side of a canyon
otherwise unmarked by human hand.
We wanted to go up that road when we could
but the river seemed too deep and fast
to cross that day.
We descended another road,
mostly dirt washed away and washing,
strewn with fallen rimrock,
found a way across the side canyon
and downstream on the left hand side.
It looked like we’d be pinched between
rock and river but pushed through to
sun-revealed shallow water.
We took off our shoes and socks,
rolled up our pants and soon crossed
to where I’d thought we couldn’t go.
We started upstream looking for our road,
found elk tracks, wild roses, a single outcrop
of white rock contrasting with green juniper,
but no sign that man had been before us.
We climbed to a grassy bench
close to where the road should have been.
There was no sign of road
or place where road could have been built.
It was time to go back so we did,
retracing our steps where we could.
Near the top of our last road I looked
for the sandstone fragment, striated with rose,
I’d meant to keep as memento.
I’d left it on the large rock where I’d found it
but missed seeing it on the way back.
From canyon rim near the car
we looked for our road
but couldn’t see it anywhere.
Worse, there was nowhere we’d been
where sane men would have built a road.
We were left with a choice of mysteries.
Was Jerry standing in the one spot,
the one light, from which a secret was revealed?
Did we want to see a road badly enough
that we did?
I think it unlikely that I will ever know
why we saw but couldn’t find,
even if I walk that golden road some day.
I will go again to look for possibilities
and realities, but expect to find
nothing more wonderful than the cutting
of hundreds of feet of sandstone
by water moving through eons,
the making of soil, grass, flowers, trees,
and friends being there, trying to understand.
Jeff Arnold
Jerry Miller with Cedarwood Canyon behind and below him, Huerfano Canyon to his left.
