Letter from the desert: Seeing stars
Posted by Chris Clarke on September 5, 2008
Another sunset, another sky over the Clark and Ivanpah ranges turned by imperceptible increment from deep blue to blood red, the slow tilting of earth and air erasing shade after subtle shade from sky. Soon all that is left is sanguinary. Soon that bloody sky flows westward and all is black.
All is black and the stars shine. Loss after agonizingly dilated loss and beyond the loss lies crystalline light, scattered joyous drifts of stars like glints on a raven plume. How many times must I learn this? At least the dawning comes more swiftly with each repetition. I stare dully at the bleak landscape, mind wiped clear of all but my metastasizing thirst, unable to move even to bat the flies away from my eyelashes, and then a laugh so loud it shakes the desert: the raven finds me ridiculous. And I grin.
This life is good. I once lay on my back in hills a day’s drive from here, impatient for the autumn sun to set so that I could gaze into Sirius’ bright eye. I look askance at Sirius these days. Orion is rising these days, his dog at heel, and I fear my old envy. In October I will stare boldly at the hunter and his dog and defy them to crimp my happiness.
Tomorrow The Raven lands in the desert. We will head for the Black Mountains, my hair now cut short, September sun playing on my nape. Burros come out of the hills there to beg. We may go to Kingman for coffee.
