Still Miss Flagstaff

To be listening to wild jazz in an Irish Pub in the old District or to be all alone driving a pick up across the dry riverbed of the Little Colorado onto the Rez and dodge grazing sheep amid the bunch grass as I cruised slowly through the deep pink sand along the riverbank wiping out the rattlesnake tracks with my tread, moving slowly north in search of a rock outcropping known for its petroglyphs and all the while watching for any herders to come at me with a gun telling me to get off their land. Happy evenings vainly sitting by a water tank in the pinyon juniper lowlands surrounded by shotgun shell casings of lazy hunters, waiting for an elk to come get himself photographed, instead only watching the sun set against the countless cinder cones to the west and hearing the screech of the stellar Jay as it searched amidst the sappy needles for a nut or two.