Walking Red Rocks Poem by Bill Galvin

My companion-stick feels happy today…
It's dropping in cadence with my step once again,
Hitting God's Grand Earth once more…
This time, the red clay, soil, and sand of Red Rock Country.

The comforting crunch of a gravelly trail
Sounding under my boot-soles, and click of my walking stick,
Tell us that we are outside once again, inhaling,
Touching, imprinting, though only for a transitory minute,
In this almost timeless place,
The eroded dust of ages and ages before us; under us.

My heart and soul are greeted with silent good mornings,
As I pass through the riparian area of Oak Creek;
The birdsongs are happy melodies in this green space…
Even though we're here on this sphere, only a short time,
I can hear them playing on, eternally, after we're gone.

The trail switch-backs against the rocky hillside,
With vistas of red mesas opening to me at every turn;
Red hills dotted with juniper, manzanita, pinyon pine, cactus.
The warmth of the early morning sun foretells
That this cool breeze will be leaving soon,
But the beauteous nature of this place urges me onward
To the other side of this hill, to the banks of a dry arroyo,
Between clusters of prickly pear cactus,
For to fill my soul's fuel tank with enough spirit energy
To transport me across any future dismal, gray highways.

Away from the variety of chirps, warbles, and songs,
Bestills a consoling quiet… the desert silence…
I still my self, and my eyes open upon a single cactus flower.
It stands gloriously, pink-magenta, atop a short spiny stem.
A young plant four inches high, perhaps to grow to four feet;
Its waxy green stem full of the rain water of the other day;
Perhaps I behold its first bloom ever...
The thought… of being blessed to witness a first bloom again!

I loop back to the shady creek, near the parking lot,
And sit amongst the birdsong melodies, cooling down, drying off.

Pulchritude in the scene continues as a wholesome runner
Jogs up the trail towards me. "G'morning".
"Good morning", she trills, cheerfully blending with birdsong,
As her young, yellow ponytail bobs back and forth behind her.

This place works its happy-spirit magic on all who partake.