with muddy hands, and I wait,
but the water doesn’t pool.
I fall back and stare at my stupid hole,
the mud tossed around the edges.
Breathing hard, sweating.
Hair blanketing my face.
My heel still throbbing from the cactus needle.
It’s always harder than I expect.
BEFORE AND AFTER
I sit and think and breathe
and twist one long strand
of hair around my finger.
I hold the strand in front of my face
and stare at the clear line of my
Before and After hair,
where my life broke
into two parts,
so easily identifiable,
like a ring in a tree thinner than the rest,
indicating a drought occurred that year
in the high desert, forcing the people
to move on to another place.
A park ranger taught us that at Montezuma Castle,
when the three of us used to adventure.
The foot of hair from the tip
is my Before hair.
It’s streaked with gold, red, brown, and blond,
as though it’s reflecting
the colors of the canyon,
vivid and shining and alive,
grown during a time
of safety, love, and adventure.
My Before hair is
hair my mother would have touched
when she was asking me about my school day
or telling me a new story idea.
My Before hair is
hair Danielle would have braided into a fishtail
while we watched movies in the middle of the night,
hair she would have rubbed lemon into
before we lay out by the pool together.
My Before hair is
hair that would have been
regularly washed, brushed, and styled.
The six inches of hair from the root
is my After hair.
My After hair is
irregularly washed, brushed, and never styled,
except to be put up in a ponytail.
My After hair is
only one shade, having been kept in the dark,
unchanged by desert days
filled with chlorine and sun and adventure.
My After hair has never been touched
by Mom or Danielle.
How can I do this?
How can I make it
through the canyon
with all of this Before and After
in my face the entire way?
A DRINK
An idea finally comes.
I need to separate
sand and water.
Filter. Strain.
I remove my white tank top
and lay it on the ground.
I scoop handfuls of mud onto my shirt,
fold it up like a sack,
and hold it over my head,
opening my mouth widely,
my chapped lips tight and stinging.
I squeeze.
It’s quiet in the canyon,
except for the buzzing of a fly
that has found me.
It whirs around my tossed-back head,
making me feel even dizzier
while brown water trickles into my mouth.
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
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,
&nbs
p; 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,
then chewing, trying to get to the edible
part of the pod, the pulp, the pith.
As woody as a stick,
sweet like syrup gone bad, sucking
every calorie I can before spitting
out the hard seeds and sawdust,
which coats all of my sore tongue
and sticks between every tooth.
Spitting so much out that I wonder
whether any is sinking into my stomach.
One calorie.
Maybe two.
But one is better than none.
I shove the few remaining
pods in my pockets
to save for later.
DIMMING
The sky continues to dim.
Soon it will be dark again,
and I still haven’t found shelter.
I still haven’t found Dad.
Then I hear the booms
and freeze in fear.
More storms. More water.
I can’t sleep on the canyon floor.
I pick up as much speed as I can,
jogging and stumbling,
panting and dizzy,
trying to beat
the fading light.
It might happen again.
Dad’s face filled with terror.
There won’t be any moonlight.
My body frozen in fear.
I won’t see the ground to run away.
Tremors beneath our feet.
I won’t see the walls to climb them.
Shuddering all around us.
I will hear it.
Roaring like a train.
I will feel it.
Trembling like an earthquake.
But I won’t see it coming.
Enormous wall of water.
ANXIETY
Flash. Boom!
My breathing speeds
out of control
as my anxiety
rises as high
as the towering walls
of the canyon,
growing grayer
with
every
passing
minute.
Flash. Boom!
And then I stop,
trying to catch my breath,
throwing my head back,
gasping for air.
There.
I see it.
A place
large enough for me
in the canyon wall.
Could something be living in there?
I squint, focus my eyes, don’t see anything
but those white drips Dad pointed out.
Bats.
If any have tucked themselves in the corners,
I’ll scare them away.
Flash. Boom!
But the fluttering in my stomach and heart
doesn’t stop.
Flash. Boom!
Because this refuge
is about twenty feet up.
FREE SOLO
Eleanor, do you ever feel reckless?
As the canyon walls cool, and the distant booms become louder, the wind picks up
and brushes my chilled arms.
No, I’m very careful.
I know now how easily I can die.
I study the cave, spot a rock jutting out
near the opening I can tie the rope around
to lower myself back down later.
You don’t ever feel like you’re invincible?
I remove my boots and socks,
tying the boot laces together
and slinging them over my shoulder,
the socks stuffed inside.
Not really. Sometimes it just feels
like I don’t care. So yeah, maybe that’s reckless.
I tie the rope in a loop and wear it across
my chest like a cross-shoulder bag.
You don’t care? About what?
I’ve never climbed
without rope,
without rock shoes,
without chalk,
without a harness,
without a belayer
standing at the bottom,
taking up my slack
and keeping me safe
so I don’t plummet to the earth.
About… me. About my life.
This will be the first wall I’ve ever climbed
with nothing but myself,
with my hair in my face the whole way to the top.
Sometimes I feel like I don’t care at all.
Like none of it matters.
Like my life doesn’t matter.
I know I could die if I fall.
But usually I’m very cautious.
Break a leg, and I’ll be left to drown.
I never really feel…
But I don’t think I’ll live anyway
if I stay down here one more night.
In-between.
TERRIFIED
I braid my tangled hair
and hope it will stay back.
I bend down and rub
dirt between my hands
since I have no chalk.
Running my bare feet over the dirt,
I scan the wall under the cave,
looking for any cracks
I can slip my fingers into.
Just a small crack will do.
My hair is already
breaking free of its braid.
I work out the ascent in my mind,
squinting in the deepening twilight,
following a path
from the ground to the cave.
Slipping my fingers into a crack
and finding a small foothold,
I pull myself up.
Good.
One step at a time, Eleanor.
I find another foothold and move
one hand above the other in the crack.
My parents lived for this
when they were both living.
Right now, more than ever,
I wish I had Dad’s skill,
Mom’s passion.
They met on the face
of a thousand-foot-tall cliff.
They spent their honeymoon
zip-lining over rainforests.
They rafted the whitewater
of the Colorado.
They paraglided off mountains
and into canyons.
They strapped me to their backs
when I was an infant and hiked
the Grand Canyon.
They taught me everything they knew
about the desert, hoping I would one day
love it as much as they did.
My parents
rappelled, climbed, hiked