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Wolf’s Tooth Pass

Wolf’s Tooth Pass                              

 

‘For thirty years, she called to me in a voice unclear. Today, a new pass leads me into the true magic of Shiprock.’

Insignificance:

Why was everything so big and I so small?  Why, from the very beginning, was the attraction so strong?  The closer I rode to what I thought I wanted the more insignificant I felt and the more important everything around me seemed to become.

Was it those things around me, or was it the missing parts from inside my spirit that grew larger in the vast emptiness of space and wonder? Stepping outside of myself in that Navajo Hogan, a vision that Bearheart had foretold years before, allowed me to take that first step back — back inside a self that was prepared to greet me and call me by my real name.

I see my old self in the false images of things that I once thought mattered … things that clouded my sight and kept me from becoming who I was meant to be.

Today, the great Shiprock monument looms ahead and checking the mileage I know I must be getting close.  The old cowboy expression of Riding For Days, But The Mountain Gets No Bigger hits home to me now. She sits alone in a sea of desert, and I feel her presence before seeing her image.  It’s easy to understand why the Navajo worshipped here, and no life was complete without a pilgrimage to stand inside her great shadow. No matter how much this mountain road twists and climbs, the eyes of Shiprock stay focused on me.

Small in my footprint, but growing larger in my understanding, I feel more important and part of this place. This is new and replaces the empty awestruck detachment I had always felt when passing through here before.  There are no small connections when timeless majesty reaches out to you, small is a term that we use to qualify others — and ourselves.

The Navajo Nation, with its flat arid landscape and towering monuments, is a timeless reminder of how low most of us dwell. Until we feel our true connection, we are indeed small and isolated from the Great Mystery — and any chance at rebirth.

Like much of the West, there is a magic here that is felt only in its presence. To become its visitor again honors me if only for the shortest time.  I finally realize that by taking nothing, I am given everything, as the ancient spirit of Shiprock embeds itself deeply inside me.  Some things only become real in your understanding of them and their acceptance, and before leaving, I stop the bike to look at the ancient Petroglyph wall that faces East.

The Kachina figures come alive and dance for my amusement, and I strain hard to hear the music and what the chanters are trying to say. In silence, I walk closer and hear a voice speaking: “Who Is Really The Ancient One On This Wall Of Renewal?”

As I watch Mudman move across the rock, I feel everything that I knew before change inside me.

In an epiphanic awareness, I point the bike north toward the high country.  I’ve been in the desert for four days, and I can hear the mountains of Colorado calling my name. The desert never says goodbye as you wander higher. Time and temperature will bring you back knowing that her light is always on. Like a faithful mistress, she watches you leave knowing that you must. Her trousseau is richer than before you came, and she is content in the knowledge that your betrothal is secure.

Darkness fell, as I pulled the bike into South Fork Colorado. Neither working town nor ski resort, it is the perfect waystop for a traveler like me.  I walk my nightly ritual along her one road, my shadow the only connection between tomorrow and yesterday.  In the waning light, I see the figure of Mudman again on the east side of the mountain. As he dances, he pulls the last rays of today’s sun onto my pathway ahead.

Walking back to the lodge the temptation to reach up and touch the stars fills me with the wonder of being so high, and the sky becomes a canopy of new light. Alone beneath the Milky Way, and wrapped in the marvelous insignificance that only a day like this day could inspire, my heart is at rest.

In bed that night, I wonder about the contrast between the desert and mountains. Feeling like a piece of thread — I travel through the eye of their needle — looking for that one stitch that will keep me married to them both. I try to keep them connected in the tatters of my conflicted wandering. If forced to choose between the two, I choose not to.  One cannot exist without the other — and neither can I.

I am thankful tonight to be a tiny speck of humanity within creations bounty, blessed to have at least one eye open to more than myself.  As my one eye gives thanks, my other eye remembers how short my duration is with the moments fleeting to embrace the little time being offered me.

This morning, I left Canyon de Chelly by a route I had never traveled before.  The main canyon road was closed because of mud, and my detour took me high over a pass I had never seen or read about.  It was newly paved, and the grade was higher than I thought the bike could make.  It was called Wolf’s Tooth Pass, and I’ve not found it on any map or atlas.  A good friend, who lives nearby, swears it doesn’t exist.   All I can say is that from the top, where Arizona and New Mexico meet, Shiprock called out to me in the distance. And in the importance of her calling — I stopped asking why!

 

Kurt Philip Behm: August, 1999

A New Dawn (Very Long)

Asleep in their nests

 birds dreaming out loud

Just outside his window

new questions aroused

The moonlight not finished

what it started before

The church clothes still hanging

 on the back of the door

What once he thought ended

 returning again

What never befriended

 new searching begins

The glass in the parlor’s

long myopic hall

Illuminates squalor

and all he recalls

The ringing alarm

signals all bets are off

As the birds start to sing

of eternity’s cost

The revelers revel

the sanguine proclaim

The church starts to fill

and they’re calling his name

Any proof in the pudding

has curdled and soured

As the chalice gets cleaned

and the vision devours

The mood is enhanced

 and wine slowly drips

The light through the stained glass

distorted in bits

The reasons no matter

alone as before

And sanity worships

death closing the door

His dress shirt went on

white starched and unblessed

The sermon made ready

for those at behest

And what might he offer

where prisoners hide

Salvation most proffered

when funded by lies

The eyes looking back

 fixed silent and low

The eyes looking back

from pews far below

Surrounded by neighbors

and men who’re once bold

His eyes were then only

but thirteen years old

The distance seemed fatal

the distance seemed slim

But now looking up

it was all about him

To one then so young

and so new and so fresh

Still wanting to believe

in not leaving the nest

Surrounded by elders

deceivers and friends

Dressed in his finest

his hair slicked on end

His eyes remain down

as his thoughts deconstruct

His face never changed

as the sermon ramped up

“And what must the youth

think of me on this day”

The Vicar’s thoughts looming

praying mantis to prey

The height differential

the power sublime

The stairs leading up

for the blind then to climb

And once at the top

all so distant below

And once at the top

nothing new left to know

The birds dare not enter

the sparrow or dove

The belfry stark empty

devoid of all love

The peacock dismembered

in colors of blight

The peacock remembered

in times that were bright

The hand bills are placed

at the end of each pew

A message designed

for only the few

Caught up in the fable

caught up in the lie

To burn down the manger

lambs scream as they fry

The church social breakfast

has started out back

Hoping for: “Great sermon Parson

had to hold my tears back”

But the truth knows no teller

but what’s told in the end

Whose message stays mired

where all messages end

Belonging to no-one

to him least of all

But forever himself

as he must heed the call

The blamer blasphemer

the architect whore

Silent screams from the pews

that they need something more

And in silence he struggles

his collars’ too tight

For clerics who bombast

portend and then fright

The moral unlettered

the reason unschooled

The soul when unfettered

no one left to rule

He knew the time short

few stairs left to climb

That boy once malingered

to always remind

To start at the beginning

to restart at the end

To start where he stopped

as a stranger again

Overpowering reluctance

consumes him today

And with cryptic delusion

he parry’s and feigns

Beget not begotten

claiming unto himself

All virtue forgotten

all feeling unfelt

If it mattered whenever

if it mattered just once

The parson calls out

to approach and exeunt

Reversing his trust

shouting but to himself

“Betray now adroitly”

this ice cube to melt

Benedictions unburning

inside the unhost

All tides are returning

last turkey to roast

The pot is left thickening

ruination sublime

Intention most wicked

coming only from mind

The cowards stay victim

the bravest rejoice

A knave neath the roundtable

never his choice

The bend in the circumstance

the straightening lie

The clue that was missing

the unquestioned reply

Walk up to the pulpit

three steps that don’t end

The pride and the fury

pontificates rend

Looking out at the parishioners

their eyes staring down

He knows without speaking

rivers crossed, bridges down

As he takes his last breath

speaks his last final words

What once was a boy

separates from the herd

He steps down, turns and leaves

without once looking back

The parson stabbed fatally

his parsonage wracked

The breakfast is ransacked

left plundered and frayed

The devout are heard neighing

like a horse without hay

Heading straight down the lane

neither bowed nor erect

No breakfast for him

celebration dissects

Walking in through the back door

his Aunty Ruth smiles

Asking, “Is everything all right”

you’ve been gone quit awhile”

He says: “Everything’s fine

as his father distills

And closing the window

say’s: “I’m feeling a chill”

He walks up 13 stairs

and sits down on the bed

Looking straight up above him

childish images dead

Asleep before dark

in a dream meets his peace

Knowing surrounded by doom

he must tomorrow retreat

He is up before dawn

and back out on the lane

One sack over his shoulder

one orphan to claim

The walk to the harbor

is rocky and steep

His gait ever steadfast

a promise to keep

Signing onto the first ship

that’s ready to sail

Setting a course still uncharted

in a sea of travail

The clouds getting darker

the waves though they fall

His soul is on fire

his spirit on call

With the ship looming outward

beyond sight of land

His future to clear

his mission at hand

That first day on board

 and first night below deck

Were the first that had ever

held him safe in their net

With dawn’s light he climbed

to the crow’s nest above

And said ‘Thank You” to providence

vowing his love

And he sat there for hours

his past to enshroud

New horizons were calling

— he never so proud

 

(Oregon Inlet: June, 2003)