Where the Body Meets the Soul

Terlingua
- Jan Carrington

I know a place where ghostly peaks
Rise high above the swirling sand;
Where old adobe ruins
Melt slowly back into the land;
Where ancient volcanic dragons
Slumber fitfully beneath
Crusted layers of rocky canyons.
Old bones and jagged fossil teeth.

Wild sunsets paint the desert sky
In a thousand different hues,
And time sculpts red arroyos
On every path I choose.
Who turns the mighty pages of this
Huge geological book?
Who frames the windows in the land?
Slow down and take a look.

Night time consumes the sunset,
Silhouetting those ghostly peaks.
Sonorous sounds of silence,
In hushed tones the desert speaks.
Choirs of crystal constellations
Serenade the cosmic whole,
In this deep dark pocket of the desert
Where the body meets the soul.

Mr. Bennett may have left his in that city by the bay, but my own heart was left in the Big Lonesome area of Texas a few years ago. There, among the spindly beauty of ocotillo stalks, my heart was torn into little bits and now lies mingled, hidden in those brave and saucy clumps of scarlett blooms.

Why does this special geographical area speak so loudly to me? Did I live there in another life, do those majestic Chisos mountains possess native American mojo?

I simply do not know.

No, I am not slapping mashed potatoes onto a dinner table diorama, ala Close Encounters, but I am obsessed with the beauty of this rough country.