Sketches from the Southwest

(on the stretch from Las Vegas to Monument Valley)

1.
A couple of miles south from the Las Vegas Strip,
the sun reclaims its prerogative. The few people
at the Bus Terminal on the edge of the desert
are testy, sweating in the silence of the heat,
waiting for the bus which never comes.
A lanky man in white flannel trousers,
with a face fissured like the cracked
parched soil, walks up and down, checks
the bus schedule each time, shakes his head.
At 12:50 a bus finally emerges from the wavering
highway heat, pulls up, opens the door.
"Are you the 12:18 guy or the 12:48 guy?"
the lanky man says, with a little smile.
The big-bellied driver laughs, squeezes
the steering wheel like a toy. "I don't know
nothin' about the 12:18 guy, man; but I'll take you
where you need to go." The door closes,
the desert retreats, temporarily.
2.
After the gale-force desert wind at night
(which caved the tents in, and blew
grains of sand into faces and hair),
the day steadies itself a little. On the horizon
giant rocks quiver in the haze.
In the RV camp, trailers are big as
apartment blocks, and seniors mill about
on their swollen feet. A clunky he and
a broad-hipped she walk a dog each; his crouches,
scatters a few poos. She asks him something
he says yes and waits but she walks away.
He spits, annoyed, catches up with her
and barks, "I said yes, I need a bag."
Half-turned over the shoulder, she is defensive,
"I asked you if you'd brought a bag, and you said
yes." "No, no," he foams," I need a bag." Silence,
she walks on. He sighs theatrically, pulls the dog,
and rolls his eyes, " C'mon Sammy, let's go get a bag."
His fake patience is as scripted as her silence;
they've rehearsed these lines, with variations,
as a worn-out proof of each other's presence.
Get out of here, I think to myself.
Just get out.
3.
The most neglected rocks in the world
are probably the ones which tower over
Goulding's Campground, just out of
the Monument Valley Navajo Park.
Their warm clay-coloured glow and
softly-rounded tops would be grand
in any other place. Here, though, they
invariably fade, dwarfed by their more famous
cousins further down the road. In the afternoon
sun, a family is on a small trail trickling
from the campground around the biggest rock.
When they come to the ditch from which the trail
moves up, the smallest of them, who must be three,
bends forward, puts his hands on his knees, peers down,
then exclaims with admonishment, and a stunning
clarity of a small creature who can calculate
the shortness of his legs: "I can't get down there!"
His father picks him up, and carries what will soon
become an able-bodied man, securely in his arms.
4.
On I-15 south, a scene on the side flits by:
four horses in the desert, one lying down, the rest
gathered around, standing motionless;
shielding the weak one from the sun.
A wordless message to anyone
who cares to look.