Devil's Tower National Monument, Wyoming
Dear Grandfather,
You told me that a man never forgets what it means to be a boy, to live in that wondrous state of dreaming. A boy dreams. A boy sees himself in his dreams, and in all things, and he believes that all things speak to him, are a part of him. A boy believes in the miracle of a moment and a man relives those moments again and again until the time comes for him to die. Then he returns to dreaming, to boyhood. I yearn to go back to that place Grandfather. That time for me has come. I am still young in my body but old in my mind and I am ready now to join you in the dream place from which we come. I am tired. I am tired.
Your letters have brought back to me those moments I had forgotten, those moments I had erased, those narrow beams of sunlight that I once believed were sent to me from Heaven, sent just to me, so that I could see a certain grain of sand sparkle for a fraction of a second, so that a flower could become luminous, so that a small stone might catch my eye and ask me to hold it for just a little while. Just a moment. I had loved the world then. I had loved what the world gave me, and in that time, my boyhood, I was living in a poem, the miracles of light and grass. The world held me gently, and I rocked and leaned against her, and the songs that she sang were my own. And then it was gone.
Long did I sleep in the blackness of my life. For years I slept, and the dreams I did have were black, for I had beleived that the world had abandoned me when in fact it was I who had abandoned the world. I did not know it then, but the question I was asking was, could I love again that which gave me this life? Could I feel? Could I wonder? Could I breathe for the sake of breathing? The answer you gave me was yes.
The sun is setting on the the earth now. You would enjoy this sunset that I see. The light has dimmed, and in this light, and this light only, I can see that I am indeed small and fragile. I am part of this.
You are gone from the earth, grandfather, but not from me. Your life has more meaning then mine can ever hope to have. You gave me that. Breath. But to whom will I give it in return?
If there was only a tree I could touch. A tree can save a life just by being a tree. You told me that too. If only there was a tree I could touch, a stone I could hold, a sparrow I could hear. I seek a final moment of clairty before I leave...There are coyotes in the arroyo. I can hear them calling to each other, waiting for the moon that will come. Theirs is a language I can trust.
The motorcycle you left me is a marvel to behold. There is no thing prettier made by man. And to ride her is to feel what the coyote feels, what the sparrow feels. It is a machine. But you are in it. Your spirit. It has carried me as far as it can. It simply will not go past the boudnaries of this place where you had hoped to be buried. I was to late to fulfill this, your last and only wish. I cannot lay you down, beneath the stars, beneath the moon, beneath the stones where the dreams form, in this place where Sweet Medicine himself came to die and remain. I was too late.
To lie down. To return to the earth. To be buried, under the sacred stones of the dream houses where the men from our past conjured the nightmares of our future, where the hunting dreams came, where the buffalo rumbled through the vast forsaken, the endless sky, prairie upon prairie, a thousand golden ponies, a cloud of silver dust, the tower of the bear, blood of our blood, I can see for miles in all directions, the open plain where bones lie hidden beneath stones of some better man's choosing. It is to that place I resign myself to now.
The eve of my death. A letter to no man. A wash-away letter. Rain and rain. Become the nothinness that formed thee. Swirl and settle. Wait and wait. Become stone again. Invoke dreams around a sleeping man.
Nothing but regrets. My life, wasted. A collection of moments is all I take. Moments inhabited by you, my true father, who gave me everything good that I ever had. So much wasted time. Words we did not share. Sunsets we missed. Now I must go. There will be no more shame for me. It is time to rest, in preparation, for the new day to come.
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