In the mornings, Tim, myself, perhaps Julia, or Brian, or anyone else who was there would sit around and be creative. Sometimes that would take the form of carving spoons. Sometimes it would take the form of building a poop tube. Sometimes making a spindle or piece of jewelry. Sometimes it would take the form of writing poetry.
It wasn’t hard finding inspiration in that small slice of canyon country. Beauty was everywhere. Challenge was everywhere. We were surrounded by friends. Life was good. There were splitter hand cracks, desert sunsets, campfires and good friends. Inspiration surrounded us. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise when we started creating.
Tim had a Shel Silverstein book and someone else a knew a little Dr. Seuss. I don’t remember now which book it was that Tim had, Where the Sidewalk Ends or A Light in the Attic or the venerable poem Babba Fats. It doesn’t really matter, Seuss and Silverstein, they were our models. Our desert and our life was our inspiration.
We would sit and write and then we would share. We wrote about what we knew, what we did and what we couldn’t do. The poems were rudimentary at best, but reading my collection brings the memories flooding back. Here is one:
A Poem About Falling #2
Struggling with an armbar
Feet stacked in a tee,
Wishing on a star,
Yet I knew it wouldn’t be
For when I looked down through the tee
All I saw ten feet below
Was big gaping crack
Stuffed with my #4 Big Bro.
No more gear on my rack
And too much slack
I couldn’t yell take.
When I started to cry;
The tears welled like a lake
But I knew I wouldn’t die
So I blinked them away and went for a ride.