Cragged

Caught on a ledge in nature, a pinkie keeps Carl afloat. The cliff is jagged and biting him with its million ton teeth. Below fades to mist, a pitch ago there were trees. The crack has shriveled into a face. Free climbing in an untarnished place. Searching with his right hand for something to hold, the fog surrounds him now swallowing him whole. He scours the stone for a nub, and looks right, balancing on the tips of his toes. 100, 200, 300 feet up only 50 short meters to the very top.

Carl is a cast of one out here, he thinks about home and his calves burn. Return to now they howl at him, return to this point, this point of no return. The cramping comes and he switches his hands, now left to his left the struggle begins. Weight off a foot a wet breeze drifts in and catches him. Now both left appendages swing out like a door and his right holds on to the crag swaying back back then forth. A moment of fear enters his eyes and Carl pins himself against the granite and feels the sky cry. First at his feet the wetness forms and creeps up his leg, he has been warned. A wet cliff is no place for any living man so he moves quick to ascend this canyon grand. Swiftly his lefts connect. He pulls to avoid the impending fog. A droplet from above now trickles down the wall into the crack where he lets his hand fall. He places it there and prays it will hold, knowing his time might have come this far from home. One slip away from being alone on a cliff no one's ever been shown. Only nature will weep for this man who has failed.

And so it does, the rain begins to pour, Carl looks out and sees nothing but dull grey. He might have cried, he might have sweat, he might still have had hope that his grip would not slip. All of that was masked in a deluge of pain. Carl lets out an ever echoing scream.

Keep the things you forgot

If there's one thing that I hope remains forever indifferent to our will it's our world. In true nature the absence and presence of humanity are most visible. Preserving the slices of the world without us in it that we have left is so integral to our collective sanity. I have to give a HUGE THANK YOU to Theodore Roosevelt today for most of my favorite places.

I adventured to only the surface of Red Rock Canyon and its splendor caught me off guard. Living in miami it's honestly sad to peer out along the horizon in all directions and see that, well... it is flat. the ocean is epic! and flat. the buildings are tall! and flat. and square. and rigid. All of the change down here is a social product. That is why it was so healthy for me to escape with the University of Miami rock climbing club to the Mojave Desert.

All the architecture is a cheap impersonation of this mountain range.

for miles and miles

stones all the same

each bit fragmenting

no practical use

save what we give them

smash them, stack them

sharpen them, scale them

shape them, scrape them

before they scrape you

From the air

it was splendid chasing the sun across the plains of the US. Millennia of change manifested in an single frame. Blink and it's new. First setting foot in the park the cold air washed over me like a bath as I recognized that this was a place I would have loved to call home. I only managed to pen a couple of poems I wish I had had more solitude, but I suppose I was there with a group, with a purpose, to climb.

Something I neglected to write about immersed in this amazing space.

Nestling mountain lion

dawning desert

stilling air

peaks and their shadows finitely long

cliffs in the act of crumbling

faces slope to plain

no need to move, a mouse will stroll through to clean my lips.

in the meantime I'll drift and enjoy the view.

No need to make this terribly long, all in all this is a

great place to spend a year exploring, let the ground guide your step, or one of the many great books on the region, and it will reveal its treasures willingly. Remember! Always clap to let the scorpions, snakes, and lions know, 'hey dudes, I'm taking the path less traveled.'