This is the land of the phoenix, stronghold of the sun. Mountains here do not lean on foothills but abrubtly thrust upwards in defient challenge of unrelenting gravity and endless sky. Blue from a distance, they are brown up close. Firs clutch and clump here, where the Mighty Oak does not tower, and metaphors shrivel up and blow away, tumbleweeds. Water in this place tastes better than anywhere else, and is more rare than kisses from cracked lips.
I lick my dry lips as I stand on this ridge, just below the highest peak in Texas. Building inside me is the need to leap out into the glory of space and plummet to the rocks below that will not yield as my body breaks upon them, and the cacti that will greedily suck up my spilt moisture. In this place I will be resurrected a new creature of bright bone. Each morning, on cold, stiff wings I will go to meet the rising sun, and each noon I will fly unflinching into its hostile power. With my great tap root I will thrust deep into the rock and hard-packed earth to suck greedily at the lands most secret moisture. I will hunt, and the pounding of my prey's heart and the surging of its blood will nourish me as much as the lean meat of its body.
And yet, I suspect that if she ventured into this place I would shade her with my wings and show her where to find the rare water-places, and the first desert blooms. All this without telling her why, or who, and I would return to this ridge and watch her until she left this land.
My legs begin to tremble, tired from the days of hiking. Brian's laughter reaches me from the campsite, and company starts to sound good again. I step back from the edge, no longer confident in resurrection, only a little disappointed. I came here to be stripped down to my pain and my strength, and I leave this place uncluttered, if not transformed. I leave no footprints in the rock and shifting dust.by Josh Gentry