I don’t have anything better
than this dirty tank top to filter it.
No iodine tablets to purify it.
No fire to boil it.
But I’ll be out of here
before sickness has time to set in.
CARRIED AWAY
The short amount of direct sunlight
has already burned my white shoulders.
I take some mud and slather it on my
stinging skin, dab it under my eyes
before moving on.
Keeping track of the time is difficult
when I can’t see the sun.
The line of sunlight along one canyon wall
is now rising.
Three o’clock?
Four o’clock?
Where is Dad?
How can we not have
found each other by now?
I feel as if I’ve walked
a hundred miles.
And then I see color ahead,
coiled in an uprooted palo verde
like a bright red snake.
As I near it, my heart leaps.
I throw my hands up to my muddy face
and laugh out loud
before skipping the last few steps to the tree.
The limbs
scratch and slice,
mar and mangle,
injure and inflame
my arms and legs.
Its slender, green branches
snap and slash,
lick and lash,
whip and welt
my face.
Its thorny claws
clasp and catch,
tug and tear,
rip and rend
my long hair.
I hardly feel any of it.
All I feel is my heart pounding in excitement
as I continue unraveling the rope
from the tree that carried it away.
It’s probably taken me over an hour
to get the rope free, my arms and legs
now as layered in shades of red
as the canyon walls,
my long strands of hair
fluttering in the branches,
my face stinging with scrapes.
But I don’t care.
I couldn’t leave it behind.
This rope might mean so much to us.
PATTERNS
Apophenia:
trying to find a pattern
when there isn’t one.
SEARCHING
You enjoy poetry. Right, Eleanor?
I like my mom’s poetry.
Have you heard of Gerard Manley Hopkins?
No.
He was a poet who would sit on a cliff
and sketch sea waves, wave after wave after wave,
to see whether one ever repeated.
Why?
He was searching for a pattern.
He believed if he sketched the same wave twice,
it would be proof.
Proof of what?
That there really was a god.
Perhaps that’s why we have such a need
to find patterns, a reason for everything.
Do you think you’re searching for a pattern?
Always.
And so I watch the canyon walls as I walk.
Waves made of
sand and stone
instead of
salt water.
I look down at the ground,
at looser gray sand running in waves
over the crackled, light pink silt.
Looking for patterns in the waves
of the ground.
Looking for patterns in the waves
of the walls.
I’m searching for repeats, reproductions, replicas.
And I know if I find one, it will comfort me.
It will mean this is all happening for a reason.
This has all been designed by a designer.
But my vision is blurry and my mind is fuzzy.
I can’t make out the details in the walls or ground,
especially when the light in the canyon
begins to dim.
DRYING
I fall back to the ground
and push my fingers in,
but the ground hardly gives.
I pull the sharp shale from my pocket
and plunge it into the earth,
grasping the rock with both hands,
trying to shovel the dirt
out of the hardening soil.
I remove my tank top again,
scoop small mounds of damp dirt into it.
Once more, I fold it up
and squeeze it over my mouth,
longing for another drizzle of dirty water.
But all I get this time is drops.
STILL
I still haven’t found Dad.
Dad still hasn’t found me.
He must have been carried
very far, but we have to be,
we have to be,
much closer to finding each other.
I cry out for him once more.
Maybe he can hear me now.
But all that comes back
is the echo of my own voice.
What if
he’s not coming?
What if
he’s badly hurt?
What if
he’s unconscious?
What if
he’s—
Focusing on what-ifs
helps nothing, Eleanor.
PROTECTION
Searching around boulders
and scanning the canyon walls
for any kind of inlet,
I look for a place, a hidden place,
that will guard me from the night winds.
Down here in the canyon,
I am completely hidden, and yet,
it seems there’s nowhere to hide.
I finally find a large boulder
with a good-sized outcropping.
I bend down and peek under it,
hoping it’s big enough to tuck myself
into its safety.
It is, but my head drops,
my heart sinks, my shoulders slump.
It’s filled with thorny twigs,
and more important,
cholla balls buried in the mud.
Someone was already living
under this rock before it got destroyed:
a pack rat.
Like the cactus wren, the pack rat
uses the vicious spines of the cholla
to protect itself.
I think of the cactus wren
and her constant, quick
ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
I think of her nest, surrounded by,
supported by, the arms of the cholla.
She uses pain as protection.
I guess I can understand,
but no human being could bear to sleep
in a bed of cholla.
ONE CALORIE
I find another hidden place and peer inside.
It’s too small for me, but…
Yes! Thank you.
I reach inside and pull out
the mesquite beans,
a couple slipping through my jittery fingers
and falling to the canyon floor.
I’ve stumbled upon an animal’s hoard,
something to eat, to ease the cramping
in my empty stomach.
I don’t care how old they are.
I don’t care how dirty they are.
I am starving.
I shake the pods
so I can hear the stone-hard seeds,
small and shaped like a sunflower’s.
They rattle like the snake,
so I know the pods are ready to eat.
I shove one slender bean in my mouth
and bite down, snapping the pod in half,