THE DISTANT VIEW

 HIGH SONORAN DESERT II                           Sedona, Arizona

I like Sedona best from a distance, when the red rocks glow in the afternoon sun, when shadows turn lavender blue, and when all the hotels and condos are hidden properly from view. This is when I am free to imagine what it must have been like a thousand years ago. I hiked several of these mesas, scrambling along animal trails and through manzanita groves, always wary of hostile cactus and slumbering snakes. Sometimes coming across old ruins, the remains of stone dwellings occupied some 900 years ago where little shards of pottery can still be found, along with ancient symbols called "petroglyphs, left on stone faces by long ago artists. And on occasion, the impressions of fingertips in the mortar, left behind by the women who built these stone houses. Centuries later, my fingertips fit perfectly.