e le fontanelle, com'e vanno?

kemosabes
I leave this land of milk, honey and stink bugs tomorrow, so no more wonderful postages to this address. Did I tell you I got stinked by a stink bug? I sat there poking him with a stick, and then the end of his butt got red and looked like he was bleeding a little, but man, did it stink, oog. Not like farts either, but like poisonous evil stink.You can't see it tho, which is a shame. A couple of good stories --- The day before I left the backcountrycabin ( I did nothing all week except sleep in the glorious sun and watch two robins shove worms down the throats of their unsuspecting newly hatched chicks) I was reading Aldo Leopold in my underwear, outwhere the trail passes through the clearing, and a youngish couple came up and asked directions. I had my ranger hat on, which lent gravity to the situation, and i told them all I knew. I also told them, since I was leaving the next day, I would probably see them en route; they said they were camping in zone A, up at the top of Capulin canyon.The next morning, personal goodbyes to the fieldmice said and last pictures taken I headed out, with the heaviest pack on my back of the entire season (carrying all the stuff I need to take home). I was hiking through zone B, below zone A, and I saw the glimmer of a tent."Great!" I thought, I'll say hello and have a cup of coffee withthem." Then, as I walk further, I saw the glimmer of a bare white ass.It turns out they were camped not 2 feet from the trail, and were having wild passionate monkey sex in the middle of the trail.. Literally in the trail, so I had to walk by, step over their tangled feet (they didnt even pause!) and look away red-faced as I passed. It was so silly I cant explain, like "Oh, dont mind me, Im just passing through. Nono, please, don't get up. .. .!" Then I realized, while I was laughing, that I should probably commemorate the event with something, and so, just before the trail went over a rise and dipped out of sight, I turned around, cupped my hands to my lips and bellowed "Keep up the Good Work!!" It seemed like not only something to say to the couple, but also a statement of thanks and goodwill to the deer, the trout in the river,the western tanagers nesting the trees near the cabin. . . . my ultimate, final, thank you. And I laughed all the way home. In many ways, it was rather a perfect ending, although I realized that shouting "Save a Tree! Eat a Beaver!" might have been better. That same day, i had been slumped (again in my underwear) over the log that goes across thebrook by the cabin, just like Mowgli after Balou taught him what was what. I was looking for the trout, but he wasn't answering, and so I started watching instead a spider spin its web. I had just finished a chapter on spiderwebs in my book, and so it was like a practical lesson. Then I looked over, and old Trouty decided to show up afterall. The about 5 feet away from him, a robin alit on a twig, and it looked us over head to toes, like Groucho Marx "Well! Looks like the gangs all here, I see" Spider, fish,bird, and mammal, pretty much all the bases covered. Then last night I was packing all my stuff in the frontcountry cabin,when there was a gentle knocking on the door. An ancient, very wet woman and a youngish very wet asian lady are wringing their hands and keening like whales. This was at 8:30 pm, so it was dark, and it turns out that the their two husbands are back miles up the canyon, because the older one is 83 and cant walk any further. (This is a forehead slapper; 83, Lady! Christ. . .) I am the only one around, thus they have found my light, and so I temporarily become the chief ranger, soother of nerves, and general hospice agent. I brought them down to headquarters, stuck them with this girl who had been in my cabin mooning over me from her great height of 8 feet 13 inches, and started calling rangers. Dale, who is off that day, tells me that since I have gotten all the information from these two crones about where they left the men, I should probably gear up and start hiking up Frijoles canyon to find them. So I do; I set off in the dark, withwater, first aid, warm clothes (as I am walking out the door, the asian lady shouts at me "bring them socks!") and a jittery joy: finally, something exciting! Over the radio, however, I hear that it is rapidly becoming Vietnam;all the rangers who are home toasting their toes by the fire of course have their radios on, and are coming racing down from Los Alamos and White Rock to share in the fun. I wish I could say that I was solely responsible for bringing this dribbling, tottering old man and his son out of the dark woods, but in fact I was part of a group of 2 that found them, and a group of three that frogmarched them -- at amindbendingly s..l..o..w pace, out of the canyon and saved the day. Thats right; me me me me me have I told you about ME? The old man had no balance, depth perception, and bum hips -- one wanted to box the son's ears; you DOPE! -- and so instead of walking across all the little wooden bridges where the trail crosses the creek, both man and son inched and swayed, listing one way and then the other, and shuffled through the water. Thus, I suppose the previously incomprehensible and bellowed asian command of "SOCKS!" Needless to say, in a situation like this, the usefulness of some and the boggling, utter uselessness of others (namely a fat female ranger, and of course old "Chief Rock'n'Roll Patrol" himself) became very clear indeed. Look busy, pass the buck, and dont get caught responsible; a more sweaty and sebacious bunch of sausages I have never seen shoe-horned into such ill-fitting, officious uniforms. This all began around 8:30pm or so, and I went to sleep at 7am(including, of course, 4 hours of requisite boozing afterwards)And so thats that; tomorrow Im out like benjy -- its a sad feeling.
xoxo
wally

Im getting that old familiar itch again, right behind my eyeballs and on the soles of my feet. Like the world is moving at light speed, and the only thing I can do is try to keep pace, which I naturally cannot. Bandelier is over, really. 8 more days and I'm out of here. All these squirming feelings inside, like have I done everything I should, have I made a footprint of even the most personal kind here? Did I cut the cord enough to fully saturate myself with the weight of my oneness, did I give it all a fighting chance?
I always tend to have the same unbalanced internals during these times of transition; I am already saddened by this inevitable change, and yet I want nothing more than to fly burning across the night sky, put on a slim black suit, and walk the streets of Rome or New York, glowing in anonymity, dripping with newness.

In the meantime tho, these are pictures of a hike entering at the Pumice mines (shades of Siberia), down into a beautiful glen with a high cataract spreading out in front of a looming cave. Above the trail to the left, closer to Turkey Springs, is a jagged face of rock covered in petroglyphs, again visible best in the waning sun of the afternoon. Further west than those closer to the Visitors Center, these represent a mid-point in the local population's migration slowly southwestwards, a stopover en route to the present locations of Cochiti Mesa and the Pajarito Plateau.

And a small cave --

Some lazy day not long ago, I spent the afternoon snoozing and reading as the sunlight moved across the ceiling. At one point I woke and was basking half-asleep, when I was startled by what sounded like a giant flying beetle. And it was, almost; a tiny hummingbird -- the non-whistling variety, we have both -- buzzed into my cave and was flabbergasted by my orange backpack. I think he thought he had died and gone to heaven; the world's largest flower, and no-one to have to share it with.

But how to tackle such a flower? He hovered here and there, surveying his treasure from different angles, all not three feet from my delighted self. He tapped, he probed, he pooped the most delicate, elegant little hummingbird poop into the open mouth of my backpack (so dainty I did not even clean it out; it must have been sugar-water) and finally, from a top-most vantage point, he took an experimental sip from the yellow emblem in the middle of a sea of orange, the center of his flower.

But what was this!? What kind of flower does not taste of nectar, especially one so big and beautiful, and most importantly, all mine? He regarded it, puzzled and motionless in the air, uncomprehending and already the slightest bist sad. Another poke, another angle. . . . Then he buzzed away, but not too far; I saw him sitting on a branch nearbye, staring at my cave and thinking hard. I could almost hears his tiny thoughts : "But it has to be a flower! It can't not be a flower!"

And then, almost as if he couldn't believe it, wouldn't believe it, and had just willed it otherwise, he flew back. He repeated his angles, tasted nothing, and the lowness in his soul and his realization that things are not what they seem, was obvious in miniature, and he spun away among the junipers.

Wonderingly, feeling like the luckiest person on earth, I thought about this: it had taken maybe a minute and a half in total -- 30 seconds for the initial discovery. And yet, in hummingbird time, measured in heartbeats, this had been a long, agonizing saga. The hummingbird had really had a relationship with my backpack.

And so these final days, which should be laden with the sweet savor of fullness, a week of daisey-chained days with no cut, rub or demarcation of units, a gently rocking seacradle of thoughts and clouds, instead grind and jump, chafe and bind me like an ill fitting shirt. I am trussed in my own local irrelevance; get me gone!

Now, if my fine Swiss watch is keeping good time, we are just entering the Cambrian of my spring, and I would tell you now about 2 visits that came upon me in a staggering Jersey Joe Walcott one-two.
This hearkens back to the days of early April, as we plow along through these Molassic oceans, sticking where we should plane, gumming where we should fly. In a fit of bonhominy, I sent out a beck and call to come and join me in paradise, for that is what it is here. In the quickest 5 minutes I can recall, I got one, and then two replies. This of course was not planned for, as No One Writes to the Colonel, and I feared they would overlap.
But no, they simply lined up like all the Italian kids in 5th grade gym class, plus that one german; Altobelli, Cotugno, Ianuzzi, Ialeggio, Signorelli, Traub.
And so from April 14th through the end of the month, I played host and delighted party favor to a lobster quadrille of my favorite people -- my parents, and then two of my best friends, Devin and Signe, late of the S.S. Samuel Enderby of Middletown, CT.
My mother and father were the first new logs in the sleeping bags, and it was wonderful to discover rather suddenly how proud I was of this place, how possesive I have become, how my own I have made it. I felt more invested than the requisite visit to the freshman dorm room, in the dead of night and stiff of rain, and I also realized that for once I happened to have some of the answers; it was one of the first experiences of my life at being realistically pertinent -- how marvellous!
The first day, in honor of changes in altitude and time zones, not to mention the lingering fingers of juniper nosejuice in the air, we took the wonderful meandering extended thought process that is Frijoles Canyon, after parking at the Ponderosa Campground. We napped in the sun, we ate apples and chocolate we fell behind, outstripped, and coalesced again. We met Lev Tolstoy, marooned on top of a pillar no doubt for his baiting of Turgenev, and watched with rapt attention as a waterlogged and still struggling fly went once, twice, three times around in a back eddy before *bamp!* the smallest trout in the pool was the only one who had eyes enough to look outside the main flow.
We met another personage high up in a rock face, stiocally staring away from you no matter where you stood; i cannot remember who it is, but my father knew immediately. I would love to tell you it was Uncle MJ, but I don't think it was.

My father and I wandered far afield and discovered caves that havent been surveyed in 70+ years (the archeologist confirmed) In front of one was a fire circle of rocks, a rusted out bowl, cups, and a few cans, and then right up inside the cave was 1930 LEO carved in the wall, just like some John Steinbeck characters had been there a few weeks earlier and left already feeling nostalgic for a not-yet past. There was a carved out bed, carved shelves in the walls, and adobe walls and blackened ceiling, in the local style of the pueblo indians. All of which means that the cave was just as old if not older when LEO found it, a remnant from the upper Rio Grande Indians of the 1200s'. Ancientness breeds stunning ancientness.

My mom showed me up by cutting and clearing trees with a crosscut saw, identifying every bird in sight, and pooping in the outhouse without care nor hair of the vestibulous legions of spiders that lurk under the rim, holding their fire until they saw the whites of our cheeks. we hiked all over the goddam place, ate many beans, drank many beers, and had a rare old time.

I advertise these photos as unrelated to the content (mostly, somewhat)

Once again, i find myself with a mouthful of saltwater, swimming hard and yet making no headway against the tide of time and photos. How has a full month passed since the last time we spoke? I find that ridiculous.

On one count is the small blip in the local purity of life; I had been leading such a sweet and good existence, measuring my molecules against minuscule happenings and events -- life on a grandly internal and microscopic scale. As a lone humming electron, things take on importance greater than previously thought and the weighty import of a flock of turkeys surprised mid-grobble does not go unnoticed.

I managed to form a week -- series of days, they tell me -- out of a small number of canned goods. Very Small Early Young Peas were Monday, if I remember, and then it was a Sweet Potato Tuesday, in memory of John Steinbeck. Not that I didn't enjoy the eating, but really the heart of the endeavour lay in the lanterns that were subsequently fashioned with coat hanger and candle, peas and potatoes noticeably stomached.

Then there was an aged visitor, of inanely Canadian disposition and brimming with banter; she reminded me of a William Steig drawing, and although she claimed she could not abide by the noise of the ugly world, as she put it, she simply would not shut up. The morning after her arrival at the cabin it snowed a small amount, and at the first doubting word from her mouth, I smartly saluted, snapped to attention, and promptly carried her backpack for her up and out of the canyon, so resolute was I in my desire for her un-presence. Oog -- the mind, or at least the ear, boggles.

This is as close to a picture of her as I have.

At our parting, when I handed her pack, I turned sharply left and climbed into the cliffs, offering no shoulder to follow. I climbed up and up and up, and found myself among and under boulders the size of prehistoric double-decker buses or perhaps small hibernating continents, breathing slowly in and shuddering slowly out. I wedged myself into a crevice only by dint of releasing all the air in my chest cavity, and found that what I had hoped was a wrens nest was actually a pile of poop, left by some enterprising small mammal. I have rarely felt so soft and like-to-be-filleted-by-life, as when contemplating my own squishy mortality in such a geological sausage-grinder.

Unfortunately, all I have for you from that adventure is a humble Yucca, whose life I took and whose roots I pulverized to make Amole and wash my skivvy scalp. How vainglorious is man! How cruel is life! How light and buoyant is my hair!

There is, however, promise of a very small cave, which shall be slept in by me and hopefully few other creepies and crawlies. I think I will line the entrance with Cholla cactus, the better to dissuade nightly snakes and to stab myself in the hands the following morn.