Faith

I have loved forests all my life. Last week I fell for the desert.

The Utah desert, to be more exact: the most beautiful place on earth, according to Edward Abbey.

I didn't fall for its slickrock, that old paradox: sandstone expanses that grip the tread on your shoes as if the rock and your shoes evolved together. Hardly slick, you can walk up or down a near vertical wall of it.

I didn't fall for the sky, blue as the eyes of two of my hiking mates. Blue as the water that is mostly lacking there. Blue as juniper berries.

I didn't fall for the plants, tough and sweet-scented.

I didn't fall for the wildlife--lizards perched on the cairns that marked my path as if the piled rocks pointing me in some preordained direction were their castles.

I didn't fall for the oven-like air between the canyon walls, the insistent sun.

I fell for the echo. Greetings, names, declarations, snippets of song, sneezes--yes, anything you can imagine we yelled to the canyons. And always, there came an answer. In the desert, I had faith: There was someone I could not see calling back to me. In the desert, I believed.