Paul Siegell
HORSESHOE BEND LOOKOUT without Camera
—for Hannah Feldberg, who forgot hers, too
A small, wakeless white fishing boat floats into the
seen from around the canyon’s corner. Upon the porch of gravity,
39 oh wows fire shots of the bend and of each other above it. Before
our down-angled eyes: a humungous U—actually, an upside-down Ω. The
primeval art of erosion. My inner Eddie Murphy erupts, “I AM VERY HAPPY
TO BE HERE! ” A faint echo acknowledges that it is, too.
(No one ever knows if they’ll make it back to
a design like this.) The goodness gracious of
Glen Canyon from above —The “Oh my G!d” of
a natural omega. (No way can any a-their cameras
fit all this; they’ll have to break it into frames.) The
lucky-charm-of-a-place-to- carpe-diem—The only way
to continue as river down- hill. Parallel to horizon, the
grand “Color Red” arrives in the distant right, the North,
then cuts a sharp left, East, toward the teen tour. A skydive
below, the mystifier swings around a massive sandstone es-
carpment, U-turning back to the West, zooming a one-eighty,
“whippin’ a shitter.” Finally, after a quick cut left, the silent current
carries on around the lookout’s other corner and disappears to the South:
Carpe escarpment! (When this summer ceases, will you be able to say you seized
the summer?) An un-photographable image—Memory: The most intangible
souvenir. And then the omega morphs, opens to an enormous cartoon-
like mouth, frozen in the desert—and that escarpment chillin’
over there: the dangler in the back of its throat: the
uvula of the vista’s voice, forever freakin’.“…AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH…”
—Page, AZ, July 9, 2003