THE HERMIT MAYOR OF MARJUM CANYON

I

From off the cliffs, the stones are rolled down to
the maze-pit of the dry box canyon. Seams
of white quartzite lace the rotten pinks and greens
of the cliffs’ pockmarked limestone. From here, near the mouth
of the canyon, framed by the planks of the cave’s only
window, the canyon leans back in a series
of cliff bands, each greater in height than those
that are the series below, up until the can-
yon opens wide behind a rotten dihedral
to the left, a high, water-carved chute to the center,
and a threatening slope of scree that the stones being
rolled down from the cliffs skate, gather, and skitter over,
smashing loose more rocks to be collected
by the canyon’s twisted maze pit. As the moon
silhouettes the canyon’s dark shoulders, the Hermit
Mayor leans in close, points a gnarled finger to my face:

‘There are birds up there, they nest in huge colonies
on the wall’s largest flakes, I know this because
I hear them in the mornings, heckling the sun
as it creeps over the ridges and me as I
put on the coffee and rattle the badger cages.
I do my best to leave them to theirs, and so far
those birds leave me be, but who is to know,
our truce is delicate at best, and at worst
it is balanced precarious upon a pillar,
threatening everything and everywhat
that is fool enough to look up upon it.’

With this the Hermit Mayor pauses
his slow speech, and reaches under the rough
hewn table that we now across from ourselves
sit in the dim cave. At first it was best not
to rest your bare elbow upon the table’s
course top planks, but now since much time has passed,
and many bottles have been sat to rest
upon the table’s grained plane, and since many
hands have slapped their oils into its pores,
the table ripples in polished waves, not unlike
a canvas of tempura sea, darkly
anchored to the dusty wall of a Dutch museum.
The mayor and hermit of Marjum Canyon
leans in again: ‘It was just so long ago then.
I left her in nowhere to go and join
the world. It was not as though I wanted to
do it, it was more as though it was to be done.
So I went, I left her there in nowhere, I
accepted a new set of clothes, and I made my way
across the ocean along with everyone else.
I was away with the world long enough that
when I got back to nowhere everything
had changed and she was gone off with someone.

‘With me for a moment, think about that.
Think about leaving nowhere for one reason,
then coming back to nowhere for another reason,
and the reason you come back for, the reason
you didn’t fall off the face of your known
world for, the reason you kept yourself from
falling apart for, alone in the night, even worse
alone in the day as all the trees came apart
and all the walls came apart so that great cities
no longer looked the same, and soon the whole world
has come apart. That reason was it and everything
for me when I was there, but then when I
was back to nowhere, that reason, she was gone.
She was gone when I got back, but I couldn’t
understand that (and I still don’t understand that,
even now after all these years here alone
in my cave). She was gone with someone else, so I
looked around, I packed my things, and I left
that part of nowhere for anywheres else.’

I whistled my agreement in a long,
low note as I leaned back against the darkness
of the cave’s open door, and the light of the cold
milky way, spread in it’s innumerable
and icy pin pricks from one dark corner
to the other of the dry, desert sky.

Another rock breaks loose and rattles down
the canyon’s hollow back. The hermit turns
his head quick to the sound, ‘You hear that?
That’s winter coming. People say there’s no
water around, but you heard that, you heard
that rock come down, and you’re sitting perched at the mouth
of this whole goddamned canyon. You look me
in the eye and think about what you heard and what
you’re sitting up here perched upon, and you
tell me with a straight face there’s no water out here,
and I’ll tell you your a goddamned fool.
There’s water out here enough that when it gets cold
as its beginning to do, that water wriggles
in deep up on those cliffs and freezes itself
wide enough to pop off all that bouncing scree seed,
and give us something to look towards on these
colder-gettin’ nights. Here, have a home-brew.’

And with that he nudged one of the two
cloudy bottles across the table towards
where I was leaning. I came forward quick
to take the bottle, and the hermit goes on ...

II

‘HOLY FUCKING SHIT MOTHER SHIT FUCKING
CHRIST FUCKING JESUS FUCKING SHIT FUCKING FUCK!’
I wail as you smash your foot against the pedal
and smile crooked and cackle as across
the lake bed in his borrowed Ford Taurus
we shoot 65 miles an hour through the dark
lost, without headlights, and not enough moonlight
to see when the lake bed ends, when a rock is coming,
where the fuck we were, or him as he lurches awake
in the back seat of his car so hard that he
hits his head on the window of the shuddering
vehicle that is his, but that we were driving,
and that we were driving quite badly. Confused
you join me with, ‘OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKK!’

III

And who’s to say what it was that stopped him there.
He is, I suppose: ‘The damn thing just quit right out
from under me. One minute my mind was on
Baker and what lay beyond the Barn Hills,
the next minute the stone’s are mortared, and I’m
doing my best to piece together a set
of shelves from a warped slab of pinon left half-
buried in the sand bar down at the mouth
of the side canyon. But that’s just how it happened,
I pointed that thing in one direction, and next
thing I knew I was there; there’s no great lesson
to be learned, no something big and meaningful.
I just started going, then I stopped, and now
I’m here and this is my life. Its not complicated.

IV

Of all the whore shacks in that dried up dust
pot, the one we rattled most in passing was that
which lay closest to the hay-stack-episcipalian
church. I had no idea what it was I wanted,
what it was I was going to do, and if I
were even to begin, whether I would get the
thing done. I didn’t even know what that thing was.

The car was pointed south, then west, then south,
and then after that it would be pointed west again.
Just before my chest filled up with air and my eyes
started shaking, near where the belching steamship
is moored in the alkali flats, blinking it’s lights
and glowering at the night and the cheatgrass brome flats,
the night itself opened in a glowing hole
floating low and near the ground with grain-trucks
drudging through its yawn. It was one of those
difficult situations where I just wasn’t sure
if we were all friends enough for me to say
‘Jesus Fucking Christ, there’s a hole in the sky.’
Oh well, said it anyway, and you both looked at me

the way you both looked at me when I
fell out of my chair drunk, and to avoid
spilling my beer, I crossed my right arm
behind my back to break my fall, and my left arm
in front of my chest to put my beer safely
on the asphalt, and in the process I shattered
the biggest joint on my right thumb.
Didn’t spill my beer. Did break my thumb.