contemplation in Arches National Park
on mobile? turn phone sideways!
the arches on these lands have a lifespan,
the visitor center video playing in the little auditorium
narrates at us. sometimes an arch will crumble
before its time, and sometimes time
will elongate its lobbed limbs into a bridge.
when I figured out I was bisexual, I felt
the sandstone holds of my structure
cave in, weakened by the loss of who I was.
will I still live a life of botanical gardens
or will the trails now look ragged and lack signs?
maybe this was never going to last,
but still, isn’t it shocking to watch death
on the screen like it means nothing?
when your house rubbles itself, what will it take
with it? first your christianity, then your assurance
that things always end on good, and finally it will take
your undistorted reflection in the college dorm mirror.
what comes next? loops and curves half-circle
in thoughts until the film shows exactly that:
a lost arch here, but there, an arch is birthed
whole from the hips of the earth herself. sometimes
clayed together slowly over decades, starting
with just a speckled window in the eye of the rock.
I know now that these gingered gods are only spectacle
to those who don’t know what it means to, in the same
dried breath of desert air, both crumble and outlast.
