Coyote Crossing

Letters from the desert: Full Disclosure

Ed Abbey had a wife and kid in the trailer with him in Arches while he wrote some of Desert Solitaire. Despite the opening of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, the old fighting tomcat did not actually leap in through Annie Dillard’s window and knead her

Letters from the desert: Raven Moon

Full moon a glint in The Raven’s eye and it drenches us in light. Sable sky bears a feathery sheen upon it. A moon-suffused cool smolder masks the stars.

Joshua trees raise arms toward the pale night sky. The Raven’s shoulder fits beneath my own.

Letters from the desert: The Cronise Cat

To what end this constant panicked flight around the southern shoulder of Cronise Mountain?

The Cronise Cat looks inward. The Cronise Cat gazes at the mountain’s heart.

To what end this relentless flinching, this blinking through dark glass at

Letters from the desert: Cholla garden

How swift it is this heart can shift, can shed old sadness as a snake sheds scales, new clarity of vision coming as old skin falls from athwart the eyes.

The Raven’s eyes sparkle in the desert sun.

I am abraded, skinless. I am that part of the

Letters from the desert: Hawkmoths

In September I sat near here for three days watching a cloud of butterflies move through the desert. There were desert swallowtails, millions of them in yellow and black pursuing anything red or orange through the Joshua trees, including the

Letters from the desert: This life

It all begins to fall away, these days, the longing and the difficulty, the nostalgias for old pain. I drive these desolate roads alone, content, the sky turning unimaginable shades fading to black. My headlights illuminate only a short stretch

Letters from the desert: My home for the summer

The house I’m living in for the summer is sufficient to my needs, for the most part. It keeps desert dust out of my eyes when I sleep. It provides a bit of privacy from my neighbors and holds up a few strategically positioned water pipes.

Those

Letters from the desert: Evenings here

The hour or so before sunset is when I love this country most.

At noon, at four, the sun is deadly. Daunting. Detail on the land is lost behind relentless glare, and every speck of dust in the air catches the sunlight, further dazzles your