Between Two Canyons on an August Afternoon
A Poem by Rick Benjamin
for John Davis
Barely trail underfoot, how
locals like it, we follow a
trace of sand between
river & two red walls
worn smooth, nearer
to cliff-dwellers 5,000
years old even if they
have also been gone
that long. Anything
noticed or witnessed
calls us back through
time. Some others
dropped twine-braided
ropes & people down
vertical rock-face in
order to carve out
a place they could
feel safe sleeping
recessed into heart
of stone far enough
out of reach of those
who would come
all this way just
to harm them.
River-rock cuts
our bare feet
once we’ve
lost the trail,
figuring water’s
as good a path
as any. Scratches
from brush &
sharp-tipped
branches dry
red on faces
in sun, & turkey-
vultures over-
head smell blood
& begin to feel like
no joke. A mile ago
the way ran clear
enough, & getting
lost between walls
& a slow-running
river pulling us in
a non-negotiable
line, unlikely.
But it’s fine to be
a little lost again
in red sand so
heavy in shoes
our noisy knees
& backs begin
to feel the weight
while we follow
no trace of a trail
back to where we
started hours ago,
no sign that we
ever set out. One
store-room up-
cliff could once
have served as a
watchtower
& someone
might have
watched us:
old enough
to leave it
all alone.
Rick Benjamin (he/him) lives on unceded Chumash land in Goleta, California, and walks each day on indigenous trails. He teaches courses at the University of California Santa Barbara, among them poetry and community, the wild literature of ecology, and literatures of both social and juvenile justice, while also working among elders, young people at a local Boys and Girls Club, in art museums and youth detention facilities. Among his other works are the books of poetry, Passing Love, Floating World, Endless Distances, and Some Bodies in the Grief Bed, and his next book of poetry. He served as the poet laureate of Rhode Island from 2012 – 2016.
