Desert Playground

This entry is part of my journal from Semester in the West. For all SITW journal entries, click here. For all SITW posts, including blog posts I wrote while on the program, click here. To learn more about the program, click here.

camp: Green River, Utah

Desert Playground

looking over the rim of a red rock canyon

trying to walk quietly

pretending to be 10,000 years old

stormy skies threatening downpour

orange water gathered in pools

the slickrock transformed into a slide

funnels down to mudflats

punctuated by a thing line of four-toed tracks

coyote ghosts

the storm when it hits with nowhere to go

curl on a rock ledge, hide from falling water

get up to follow the rain traversing ground

clothes are wet and loud

take them off, walk barefoot through mud

feet following this morning’s coyote

the rain stops

stand naked in the desert

and the slickrock smooths your feet