Visitors

There was a chicken wire cage
with teddy bears hooked onto the wires.

Like the prizes at a carnival booth.

Some things were crawling

on the teddy bears.

Tarantulas....Dozens.

I woke up, slowed my breath,

and looked at the clock.

Two twenty two.

I did not fall back easily into sleep.

I cast my vision back to Zion,

the flowers blooming

on the canyon walls

where the water weeps.

Where all the hikers pause

for a moment on their way

to wade the Narrows

of the Virgin River.

Hundreds of them.

With their rented wading shoes

and tall hiking sticks.

So much love and wonder

for this place. My lover’s sister

told us that God spends

a lot of time in Zion.

It has that kind of blessing,

the sculpted stone and cool water

that the cottonwoods eagerly sip.

A place of inspiration that

desert prophets would admire.

As do we in our millions

visiting each year, loving and gazing,

best not to touch too much,

lest our sacred places

end like Lennie’s mouse.

I slept until the dawn grayed

the sky and when I rose

I remembered the spiders

and the teddy bears,

and the yellow columbine

where the canyon weeps.