I drive out of this small town early on a spring morning, and off into the wilderness. Heading down dirt roads on tires worn thin, they stir dust into clouds. Going 50 miles per hour across purple sage valleys, I’m headed for a mountain range of low rising foothills.
The road itself doesn’t intrude much. Southern Utah is a piece of the old west, where the brown foothills contrast sharply with blue sky. It is quiet, except for the distant rumbling of commercial jet airplanes, or a few cawing ravens.
Living in silence, I have an old-fashioned heart that yearns for the dying past. It is dying because humans are forgetting from whence they came. They are building new technologies and claiming to be evermore advanced. Soon they’ll be claiming to control the weather, and will have every spot of earth under their footsteps.
When that sun falls every night, I cannot stop looking into the crimson colors, knowing that one more day shrivels away. As we head into a future of uncertainty, what will we face?
I feel like a monster possessed with evils
that I cannot escape.
I’m stuck with my vehicle, a necessary evil,
four wheels to carry me across the barren planes.
I am a mass of thoughts
and dreams chasing forgotten things,
a recluse always in those mountains,
always feeling brave and alone.
The atmosphere is teeming with nomadic clouds.
I want to move with passion.
The earth owns my aching, ascetic core.
I’ve been broken and pulverized.
Still, I want to remain undeceived.
I want to resist modern-life
and day-dream.