Serenity and Severity

Manifest West

Serenity and Severity

WESTERN PRESS BOOKS

GUNNISON, COLORADO

Manifest West. Copyright © 2016 by Western Press Books

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author of the work in question.

ISBN: 978-1-60732-591-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016936122

Published in the United States of America

Western Press Books

Gunnison, Colorado

Cover image: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

The Burn, Four Years After by Rick Kempa was previously published in Keeping the Quiet by Rick Kempa (Bellowing Ark Press).

Plowshares by John Haggerty was previously published in MacGuffin (Schoolcraft College).

Tracking by Nathan Alling Long was previously published in Glimmer Train (Glimmer Train Press) and Mother Knows (Washington Square Press).

The Luckiest Boy in the World by William Cass was previously published in POPLORISH (Old Growth Northwest).

ISBN-13: 978-1-60732-592-5 (electronic)

STAFF

EDITOR

Caleb Seeling

CONSULTING EDITOR

Mark Todd

ASSISTANT EDITORS

Sheena Feiler

Sapphire Heien

DESIGN & LAYOUT

Sonya Unrein

CONTENTS

Introduction

NATURE’S DUPLICITOUS EMBRACE

Abigail Van Kirk

To Colorado, and Her Fickle Nature

Gail Denham

All Night Vigil . . . Waiting for Fire

Lance Nizami

Fourteens from Thirty

Rebecca Aronson

Los Alamos Fire

The First Act

Home

Scott T. Starbuck

Canyon

Ronald Pickett

The Desert Night

Evan Morgan Williams

Anasazi

Nathan Alling Long

Tracking

Kaye Lynne Booth

Yucca! Yucca! Yucca!

Sarah Fawn Montgomery

Pioneer

Altar

THE STORM OF CIVILIZATION

Sarah B. Boyle

The Beast of the Plains

Heidi E. Blankenship

Condor #122

Betsy Bernfeld

Sudden Storm

David Lavar Coy

Long Drive at Night through the Saguaro Forest

David Stallings

Cold and Clear

Juan J. Morales

Driving to Albuquerque

John Brantingham

1850

Terry Severhill

ENVIRONMENT

John Haggerty

Plowshares

Rick Kempa

Thirst and Water (excerpt)

GROWTH AND RESURGENCE

Rick Kempa

The Burn, Four Years After

William Cass

The Luckiest Boy in the World

Scott T. Starbuck

Truant

David Lavar Coy

Fear of Electricity

Blackouts on the Ranch

Michael Harty

Hoarding the Rain

Benjamin Dancer

Time Out of Mind

Patricia Frolander

Bequest

Lyla D. Hamilton

Bum Lambs

Don Kunz

Lost in the Wasatch

Ellaraine Lockie

Dignity’s Dirty Little Secret

In the Language of Dark

Victoria Waddle

Marathon Fire

Steven Wingate

Octet in Praise of Colorado’s Viscera

CONTRIBUTOR NOTES

Contributor Notes

About the Staff

Introduction

The stark dichotomy of serenity and severity permeates the everyday, commonplace for those of us living in the West. Each of us observes the beautiful contrast of severe peaks and sharp precipices over the smooth serenity of valley floors and meadows as we drive through the many ranges that our region houses. Those of us who hike, raft, ski, run, and otherwise enjoy ourselves in Mother Nature know all too well that any shift in temperature or condition can be equally dazzling and deadly. Our ranchers are equally aware of this paradox, for rain and heat can both cultivate or destroy crops, depending on which season they occupy.

Yes, the nature of the West is both serene and severe—but this nature is not only of the outdoor variety. Our independent way of living can save us or strand us; conversely, our dedication to family can provide a network of others whose needs and desires we not only feel obligated to consider, but live to fulfill. The nature around us, the nature of our lives, and each of our individual natures are intertwined.

This complex theme offers numerous possible approaches, yet some are so interrelated that they are best understood in the context of each other. We have arranged this issue’s selections into three categories, each representing a different interplay between humans, animals, nature, and the Western way of life. In Nature’s Duplicitous Embrace, the ways in which nature holds us and shapes us, both through love and beauty, and pain and tragedy, are dissected. In contrast, The Storm of Civilization investigates ways in which civilization and humanity affect and abuse the environment around us, and how our acts against nature return and impact our lives. Finally, Growth and Resurgence journeys through humans coming of age within nature, their personal growth as a direct result of the serenity and severity surrounding them, and nature’s growth in spite of humanity and itself.

How better to explore the myriad of ways in which Western life embodies the serenity-severity dichotomy than through the voices of Westerners and West-lovers from diverse walks of life? In this fifth issue of Manifest West, twenty-nine writers offer their perspectives on the serenity and severity of life in our region. Representing various experiences and career paths, our writers range from those whom we may expect to be intimately acquainted with this duality—forest rangers, photographers, geographers, and ranchers—to the philosophers, lawyers, librarians, and military members whose own experiences are critical to rounding out our understanding of the serenity and severity of the land we call home.

Their submissions graced us in the shapes of short fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and—for the first time—flash fiction. Given the complexity of this issue’s focus, what can we expect other than a panoramic interpretation of the theme in a diversity of forms?

NATURE’S DUPLICITOUS EMBRACE

ABIGAIL VAN KIRK

To Colorado, and Her Fickle Nature

Keep me shaking,

keep me shivering,

caress me with tendrils

of apathetic cold,

and I will learn to love

your stark unstable seasons.

Frigidity balances fiery hearts

and perhaps that’s why I’m drawn to You.

GAIL DENHAM

All Night Vigil . . . Waiting for Fire

We held hands, five of us, perched on porch steps.

We watched gray columns of smoke rise above

forests we loved—columns surrounded us on three

sides. We could hear distant flames crackle

as the fire gobbled trees, brush—news reported homes

lost. We held hands, prayed for the brave ones trudging

through that madness with shovels, hoes, and ditch diggers.

I couldn’t imagine facing that inferno head on. God keep them.

Mom, do I have to leave my rabbits? Frankie was subdued.

I could only nod. My mind sorted: some family photos

and important papers gathered, but my doll collection, Vic’s

artwork left behind. Dog cages stood ready. What did we forget?

Our car was packed, so full we might not all fit. Slowly

the sky blossomed with a sunset glow we’d never forget—

oranges, purples, brilliant red, as if the flames had shot

to the clouds and deliberately colored our skies.

Grandma Bertie brought out sandwiches—thick ham

on her homemade bread, upside down cake with fresh

peaches, hot and steaming, cold sodas. "Don’t want

to waste this fresh fruit. Eat! It’ll cheer you. After,

let’s play that guessing game you kids like."

We sat outside nearly all night, fetching blankets and pillows

against the cool; Rachel and Frankie with heads on our laps;

waiting, hoping, praying. Grandma’s rocker kept a steady

rhythm. Sprinklers whipped, wetting the roof; water dripped.

Suddenly, peeking from between two smoke columns, a full

moon appeared. There it was—strange, tinted red, but whole

and beautiful. Like a promise from God that fire might not

leap to consume our world this time. A promise that whatever

happened, there was order in the heavens.

LANCE NIZAMI

Fourteens from Thirty

A textured sea of wrinkled white recedes beneath the aeroplane

Colorado, colored white: the first sub-zero snows of Colorado

And here we cruise at thirty thousand feet

It’s warm inside the cabin, and we soon forget the chill dry air outside

The chill dry air extends down to the land

It’s Colorado, dry in winter, dry enough to turn men’s skin to parchment

Colorado, white-flake-covered autumn Colorado, I can see you

November’s barely here and plains and mountains lost their contours to the snow

And deep within the mountain valleys, elk will huddle in the bush, invisible

The streams are frozen over; beavers, fat with bark, sleep silent in their lodges

Colorado, Colorado; chilled and silent, little but a mouse disturbs the quietness

And far below me, flakes begin to fall; they’re gently smoothing all to white

    in Colorado.

REBECCA ARONSON

Los Alamos Fire

The city held its breath.

That is, we in the city held our breath.

The dog-walkers tugged leashes to a slow stroll

while dogs panted for speed.

The neighbors with their cream skin and kewpie eyes

rolled toward one another in the morning light.

The woman with a once-dark braid

gave stern instructions to her damaged son.

We simmered together with sore lungs and waited.

The air became visible

and settled around us seared particles

of forests. As odor contains remnants

of its object, my head aches with crumbled monuments

and spoiled crops, with the charred bodies of deer and wood mice,

radioactive ash the burning ground releases.

No one has said a grave is not a grave

when the buried thing still lives.

No one says it’s time to leave.

REBECCA ARONSON

The First Act

There’s wildfire

sheering the mountain,

leaving a smear of ash for a coat, cindering

knots of trees and abandoned hides.

What’s left is a scorched shell so brittle

seedlings will storm through the surface.

From down here it will seem a riot of green gems

has erupted, a sleek new skin

to mask the burning city

which hovers at the periphery of sleep

coveting breath. We choose our dangers.

This high desert, piñons torchy

among parched understory, electrical sky,

radioactive remnants simmering in red rock,

this gun with its invisible trigger.

REBECCA ARONSON

Home

I wake blind in a striped cell.

I wake from a hot, black sleep

to find the sun, a manhole cover,

stomped down tight. I move through a field

of dry stalks rustling a reedy cantata,

woodwind in hollow sands, the music

of shrew and ragweed.

I came here for a mountain.

I came here for a poet. I came here

for something I imagined about horses.

I fell into a snake hole that held me.

When the rains came I was released

as high tide releases driftwood from the