Standing in a forest of snags, a dead woodland.  Ponderosa burned by fire.  No less in beauty than a living thing.  Aspen coppering in autumn.  Sun rises.  Navajo Mountain, a bluing turtle’s back, looming above the Paria Plateau, edged by the sharp burgundy of the Vermillion Cliffs.

A bevy of does just before the rut, snorting, on the move from a glen up a hillside.  A raven croaks, skating a ridge.  The broad, umber sweep of House Rock Valley rolls up to the Echo Cliffs.

The warm and soft wind rises through virgin air through which shines the stainless light.  What does anything matter?

© 2015 by Michael C. Just