The Alluvial Fan

Death Valley NP Dunes

***Definition of Alluvial Fan: the alluvial deposit of a stream where it issues from a gorge upon a plain or of a tributary stream at its junction with the main stream.

On a recent trip to Death Valley, I spent time photographing the dunes, exploring the canyons, and traveling through the desert. In a place with so much rock and sand, to imagine times when it was green and verdant is natural. For me, the high flying Raven's see so much. Birds, in fact, that may live over 50 years. No wonder they appear so witty and smart! Simply lacking our own comforts of home, it is rare we lived longer as hunter-gatherers. So who's wiser? This is a story of the wandering Raven speaking to the mountains.

--

Of the desert rides a bird of flesh and bone
“Don’t think of her alone,
but far from home.”
Out from the roiling currents she is carried
to the parched Earth

“Tell her oh Dunes of these effervescent mountains
in their vivacious youth!”

In the sand the flesh of washed-out youth
“But LOOK, look up and see
the mountains.”
black and beady eyes stare upward,
as feet crane as feathers are ruffled,
and what is seen is stark cliff
slapped against pale cheeks
and brow of old and elemental mountains

“Ah, but once they were green
and sculpting creeks ran through sculpted meadows,
basic units of beauty petrified
in those moments when youth’s thundering holler
was scattered by the scions of Natures brood
that roamed these precious crests of the Sierra.”

Reaching out, the bird gathers the arid breaths
of these thirsty, weeping denizens
whose anatomy has ground down the grottoes
like the stone that turns and turns
until it has ground itself to nothing
and sees what once was the Funeral Mountains
under seas of green and gracious trees,
isles of twisting and dropping rivers,
and corridors of broad and snaking valleys

“That which appears everlastingly
is as transitory as man,
as malleable by the drifting years,
as measured as her quartered seasons,
as day is to night,
the waning moon to tides,
we are all one day driven down the canyons,
shattered rock ground to sand,
and spread outwardly, an alluvial fan
beneath the sky of the Mojave desert.”

This Mountain Scene

There is something deep and foreboding about high places and especially of those that fly there. Something more about the Raven, black as night and eyes a-piercing. So often, I've wondered what they are looking at, what it is exactly they find so interesting. Because they seem, in all places you find them, more intelligent and hardy, full of wit and quicker than most. In my poetic mind, seeing though these eyes should be so very, very facinating? So it was then, in a mountain scene, I traveled with the lonely Raven...



---

Oh Raven (!) who flies black against the day
Swing your eyes downward across the land
Tell me what you see, how the forests lay
How the meadows brighten on a cool summer’s morn
How the rivers crash and cascade down cliffs shiny and gray
How the lakes slumber with fish at rest neath star-struck heavens
How the wind ruffles forest leaves across dry rock beds
How herds of elk bed down in fields of high green grass
Tell me Raven all you perceive!

Oh Raven (!) who sits perched high above
Swing your eyes downward across the land
Tell me what you hear, how the sounds play
How they whistle and croak, hoot and holler
How they hem and haw, creak and groan
How they bugle and growl, bubble and gurgle
How they whisper and sigh, murmur and cry
How they moan like the glacier, breathe like the forest
How they sing like the ocean, purr like the bubbling brook
How they resonate and hum, suffer and grieve
Tell me Raven all you perceive!

Oh Raven (!) who dances on currents of wind
Swing your eyes downward across the land
Tell me what you think, how your mind works
What you see in Moon’s eyes when she peers at you
What you know of the stars, the way they swim in darkness
What you grasp of life, how it begins and ends
What you pray to and believe, what god you may have
What you ponder of when lone on mountaintop
What you wonder of this mountain scene
Tell me Raven all you perceive!

Oh Raven (!) who swoops above sharpened ridgeline
Swing your eyes downward across the land
Tell me where you go, what emotions you have witnessed
What birth has wrought to mothers grasp, the fear and happiness
What courage you have seen in the face of hungry wolves
What lonely onlooker you have spied facing sunfire’s death and her colours
What smiling fool you have sighted screaming and hollering success
What laughing coyotes you have spoken too about the coming freeze
Tell me Raven all you perceive!

Oh Raven (!) who is sheltered from these low places
Swing your eyes downward across the land
Tell me of your home; show me these high places in the snows
Where thunder and lightening bicker like an old couple
Where storm lays down wind and rain, washes the land of dirt and grim
Where big things seem tiny, just echoes you can barely hear
Where life is not lonely, it is full and hungering
Where days are not in hours, but in the comings of morning and the leavings of day
Where things are not always free, not always tied to a warm, gentle green
Where you are steadfastly at watch, eyes ever in concert with nature
This Raven who understands this wild place
Telling me all that he perceives with such honesty and grace
I, for one, wish I had wings and could fly black against the day