Canyon of the Colorado River near the mouth of the San Juan River in Arizona
The walls of stone shrinking a little more every living
night, and when voices then begin to murmur in the dark
once again, in broken tones, it's difficult to understand
the stage directions, if that's what they're meant to be,
through the background hallooing of the wind
around this large theatrical canyon, where the tall hats
tell a tale of five cowboys, positioned in a perfect line
against the eyepopping symmetry of the landform,
erect, stiff in the saddle, kabuki-like
in their frozen mechanical formality. The signs
which have been unclear up to now start to suggest
that this is no common dream; the hollow clip
clop of the hooves across the baked-earth canyon floor
beneath the escarpment makes you wonder if the stage
carrying the mail-order bride from the East might not
be running more than merely a little late, and whether the sage
for that matter might turn out to be not really purple after all
but dyed a strange ashen-ember hue; and whether, too,
these mechanical varmints costumed as ordinary people
are not trying to clamber into the picture
merely to let the audience know they are here, trying to be trying,
and if the stage never arrives, will she still remember you?
Canyon De Chelly in Arizona. Walls of the Grand Canyon are about 1200 feet high
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