Wupatki (photos)

As I revisited Wupatki Monument, I discovered it was built by the Kayenta Anasazi! Small world. I am still traveling within the culture. Last time I was here was with Celia Woloch in 1992. So it's a homecoming back to the self.

My friend Erik said the culture's "a mixture of SinAgua, Kyenta Anasazi and Cohonina peoples. The northernmost ceremonial ball courts, like Mexico, suggest contact with the Hohokam. Some may have become the Havasupai. 

 Others became Hopi clans. The Bear, Katsina, Lizard, Rattlesnake, Sand, Snow, and Water clans go there to remember their ancestors. There is a blow hole there which probably had sacred meaning. They grew corn and squash, harvested water and traded stuff all the way from the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico and Mexico."

I put my hat over the blowhole below the ball court and let it shoot up into the air. It smells of dankness and limestone and death. The sacred Quiché Maya twins Hunahpu and Hunahpu (or Xbalanque) played ball here too. In the caves of Xibalba, the Lord of the Underworld sighs.

Suddenly I am remembering, and missing John Oliver Simon, who took me to the underbelly of the world, and I am once again straddling parallel lives. Both coming and going. Time telescoping into itself like a Möbius strip. The jaguar sun fell from the sky, pierced to the heart by an arrow. I am counting katuns and facing the end of another relationship. Off with their heads. Let the games begin.

from Facebook notes, revised 4/23/16

Four Corners to Tuba City (photos)

Four Corners & Tuba City. Mffft. (Add California City to the mffft list. No there there.) Not impressed. The Navajo Nation have monitized the stateline boundaries and turned Four Corners into a tacky theme park. Define tourist trap. So irritated that there was an admission fee of $5 per person. I preferred the old geodetic marker without all the fanfare, and you could see clearly into all four states. Not that there was a lot to see.

The theme seems to be a build it and they will come mentality. Now the once unfettered view into four states is surrounded by a sea of concrete: a cement plaza, an auditorium, kiosks where native artisans sell trinkets, and portapotties. Tourists just love this stuff. Think they're getting a piece of the action. They need to be officially told with little plaques that they're having an authentic experience.

It's an artificial boundary after all. Really? Do they also charge the San Juan River admission? We parked under the Four Corners sign and argued about going in.

But the day was drawing to a close, and there was no place to stay for us Bilagáana at Four Corners, or at Teec Nos Pos (a circle of cottonwoods) which consist of a trading post a DMV, and a post office (cheap gas!), so we took a miss on Chaco Canyon. We'd just come from Kayenta (Tó Dínéeshzhee), a dry town of many churches, and didn't want to retrace our steps. Besides, there was only the ostentatious pricy Hampton Inn. We didn't know about the only other motel in Kayenta, the Wetherill Inn (no wifi). Notes for next time.



Agathla Peak (Aghaałą́—wool-gathering), or El Capitán, a sacred peak.

According to Wiki, Agathla Peak, at 7,099 ft, is a volcanic diatreme, or an eroded plug that rises more than 1,500' feet above the valley floor. Think of it as the many-chambered heart of the volcano. The breccia, cut by dyke arteries, and an unusual igneous rock, minette, are 25 million years old. Seconded only by Shiprock, these astounding monumental rocks are part of the Navajo Volcanic Field. By contrast, Monument Valley's minaret reefs are comprised of sandstone.

Church Rock, just east of Kayenta, near on the Navajo Trail (US 160), was astoundingly beautiful at sunset. I was not expecting that. I thought Agathla Peak and its sidekick, Chaistla Butte, or Little Capitán, were the the crown jewels. I didn't even know about Church Rock (we entered Kayenta late at night), so its surprise beauty was doubly astounding. No time to stop, we were chasing twilight. Neil wouldn't stop the car for photos, so I watched it whizz by in the rear-view mirror. All I have is a drive-by memory of Diatreme Alley.

Church Rock? or another outcrop on 160. It was a cathedral of a rock.

We followed the Navajo Trail through the canyon all the way to Tuba City. So much for seeing the Painted Desert in the dark.

In Tuba City Hopi and Navajo tension is palpable. Cop presence everywhere. Most of the police in front of Denny's and a monstrous casino/hotel are Hopi. We got questioned by the Navajo Police in a MacDonald's parking lot for sitting in our car. I was trying to find a motel on the iPad, So much for the free wifi at MacDonalds. Don't ever loiter in Tuba City.

Tony Hillerman's memorable character Sgt. Jim Chee, caught straddling two worlds, was a Tuba City Navajo Police officer. He left Tuba City behind—probably for a good reason.

Tuba City was named after Tuuvi, a Hopi leader who converted to Mormonism. He brought the Mormans in. Must explain the third arm of tension here. Tuvi means outcast or rejected one. The Navajo name Tó Naneesdizí means tangled waters, which is a good a metaphor as any. What was the Paiute name? There are two time zones here. Then there's Navajo time.

Speaking on the measurement of time, we also missed out on seeing the dinosaur tracks and visiting the Navajo Code Talkers museum. Tuba City, a boomtown, struck it rich on uranium, is an uneasy city.  I just wanted to get out of Dodge. I don't want to see that kind of glowing desert landscapes.

We gassed up (a full tank is a must, gas stations are few and far between. Gas is also cheaper on the reservations), We pushed onto Flagstaff during the wee hours and were met with hellacious rain! Next morning it was snowing at the pass above Flagstaff so we abandoned our Grand Canyon plans. Road closed. Revisiting Wupatki was our grand consolation prize.

I think this is Chaistla Butte, or Little Capitán.

added, extensively revised 4/17
(I got into it! You never know when a line or two will yield a post.)
from very skimpy Facebook notes

Across Navajolands, (photos)

We've been traveling for travel's sake across Navajolands to see what was there. We took a jeep deep into the back country with a new friend who lives in the canyon where we're staying. Though he's lived here for over a year, he's still discovering new places. Bill was a medic in the army, and serves as a nurse health practitioner at the Diné Health Clinic, so we're in good hands.

The jeep lumbers over rock reefs, and surfs and bucks in deep red sand. We yell Heehaw! Sing Surfin' USA. Myriad tracks braid their way through the bluffs and gullies of Mystery Valley, I worry about getting lost, but Bill's son, young Samuel from Brazil knows the way. He leads us unerringly through the slot canyons to the arches, and holes in the walls.

The sandstone hills are steep. I scramble on hands and knees. My knee braces are only of so much use, so I can't see the inside of the Toilet Bowl. I scoot down cliffs on my butt when all else fails. I cannot crawl on my hands and knees for my knees cannot take any pressure. again with my hands and elbows and drag my body along like a gila monster.  I can't fathom using the handholds etched into cliffs. Not on the descent.

Yesterday we traversed Anvil Mesa where a petrified forest once stood. Downed logs the size of young redwoods, turned to stone, as if they had gazed upon Medusa's eyes. Some trees looked like huge swamp cypresses. Not junipers. The brewing storm had us shrieking as we stood patiently for the obligatory photographs, as an arm of lightning, the size of a vast tree limb, struck behind the photographer. Talk about using a flash.

Last night I dreamed that I ran into an old childhood friend at the ruins. It was an odd telescoping of time. What was Pete Sutton doing in my dream? It was great to see him. We reconnected on Facebook, but I haven't physically seen him in decades. Was a time when I saw Pete almost daily in the ceramics lab at College of Marin. I realized we had a common shared  history. If anyone would understand, it was Pete. A spirit guide of sorts. 

We found makeshift homage altars made of potshards and food offerings of tiny teosinte cobs at the Kayenta Anasazi pueblos. I was explaining to our hosts how the pots were made. How the thin walls were made by hand—by touch, not sight. A I demonstrated the process, I felt the secret fleshy curve of the long dead potter’s thumb. I explain that some pots were formed by pressing them into baskets, or against woven mats, others were pinch pots. I didn't see any evidence of coil pots.

The Anasazi used a slow black reduction firing, the designs were painted on with calcium and iron ore stains, no glaze was used. The pots were burnished with smooth stones to align the silica spicules in the clay. I rub shards thousands of years old, still smooth as skin, against my lip.

The Navajo or Diné people are superstitious, they won't visit the ruins, they say there are ghosts and evil buried within bone. The Anasazi are not their ancestors, however they are the caretakers of the land.  If the Navajo guides do visit, they lay shards as offerings to belay any present danger. Leaving shards in remembrance for the Anasazi ancestors. There are many shards stacked up. The infrequent tourists have followed suit. Better than everyone taking a small shard home. 

Suddenly I remembered our pottery teachers Jim Brown and Thano Johnson telling us how to construct pots when we were young. I explain to young Samuel and Sarah how the pots were made, using the models at hand. In that split-second I realized that I was passing the old knowledge onto the next generation.

AN UNEXPECTED POEM FOR DR. JOHN

A UNEXPECTED POEM FOR DR. JOHN

A friend sends a photo from Jerome, Arizona.
John's wearing cowboy boots, a black Stetson,
sheepskin vest, jeans, silver buckle—
as if he stepped out of the last century.
The only thing missing are rowelled spurs
and the odor of horse shit and alkali dust.
The story abides. Jerome, a mining town
rescued from oblivion by tourists and art.
Time itself stands still like a dull dude horse
for those foolhardy enough to brave the journey.

Last and only time we passed through Jerome
was at break-neck speed, Neil had a gig in Prescott
on the other side of Mingus Mountain. No Charlie.

Someone in Sedona said, It's not far at all… 
Famous last words. We whipped the van 

up the blood-red Mogollón Rim through sage,
twisted pinyon and stately Ponderosa pines.
We slithered around hairpin turns like wet noodles.
The Cleopatra Hill, stained with streaks of turquoise
and rust from open pit copper mines—a blur.

A drive by sighting. Couldn't even stop to visit.

I howled from the back seat like a sick dog.


My friend smiles for the unseen camera.
By the verdigris lintel of the old Connor Hotel
the bell held its tongue on the hangman's scaffold. 
Jerome, dubbed the wickedest town in the West. 
Worse than Body. IWW miners' strikes & deportation.
But the Labor bosses won. A real Company town.

Miners clung to dreams as underground pyrite fires 

raged in the mines for decades until it played out.

Their doorways reached out like empty arms.

The copper no longer "shines like Arizona gold."
Now, a broody buttermilk sky promises snow.

Beyond the blaze of Sedona's Red Rock sandstone,
the serene snowcapped San Francisco Peaks dream,
home of the kachina cloud ancestors. Indigenous
dreams of the Yavapai, the People of the Sun,
long forgotten, but some say they still hear 
the "Gaah-kaka" spirits singing at night
from the deep mines of Mingus Mountain.

Dr. John, whose ancestors fled the Ukraine,
finds tenure from Las Vegas to the Saudi Desert
where he adheres to the old ways of the Adab.
He dons a thobe & bisht vest, salwar for jeans,
a taqiyah cap, a shmaugh roped to his head
with an agal—camel hobble—for his Stetson band.
Al Qassim, a land of sand dunes & white saxaul trees.
How he left for a kingdom of camels & date palms
is a Bedouin mystery. All you need are three things:
a tent, a camel, and four wives. He doesn't have one.
A linguist, he wrestles an oasis of tongues
into something resembling time present.
But the retro cowboy way also suits him.
He leans too far forward on his toes—
in his $2.99 Goodwill crocodile boots,
after months in desert sandals, 
he is unused to the high stirrup heel.
All propped up and ready for the getaway.


When I was a kid, I was horse crazy.
I spent hours in the basement reading
the collection of musty dimestore books.
Zane Grey's novels: Riders of the Purple Sage
stolen herds, wild horses, star-crossed lovers,
stilted language, rustlers, and masked heroines.

All that remained of the story was the intrigue,
black Arabian stallions outracing the wind,
the lovers' escape into a verdant pocket canyon.
A cleft of blue sky. How they toppled Balancing Rock,
forever closing the only way in and out of Paradise.
The moral tenor of Mormon polygamy—over my head.
The real West was an uncharted region between towns
where anything is possible. The placenames survive:
Jerome, Cottonwood and Verde Valley. Zane's cabin
perched on the far Rim near Tonto Creek.

I've owned two pairs of cowboy boots.
The first pair were for horse shows.
I was a kid, but they were too big,
lead weights pulled me down into darkness.
A fire sale. Thank God, I never grew into them.
The 2nd pair were a flight of nostalgia.
A garage sale in Santa Fe,
down by the old Delgado Bridge
where the Rosenburgs were arrested.
Those traitorous boots wore the skin off my ankles
no matter what I did. They were inlaid
with indigo and russet leather,
with fancy stitching in floral motifs.
A shackle of hobbled beauty
with no escape, no flaw in the design.
Leaving me to ride off into the sunset.

11/4/11