VULTURE FREEDOM
                                Standing in an Ancient Shelter above the Rio Grande.

Today I walk in the footprints of my ancestors, admiring their art and trying to make sense of it: a thousand year old pictograph carved in stone and painted over in ochre plant blood. Do I see the abstract expression of a snake, or a striking diamond pattern embroidered on a blanket?  

To my back flows the Rio Grande (or Rio Brazos, to Mexicans). It grabs the wind and makes waves. A steep stonewall climbs above the southern shore, like a barrier or a fence. Above it soars a buzzard crossing the border as buzzards always have: no identification, no passport, no license. I wish I could do that. Have complete freedom to roam at will wherever. To cross borders like birds, like buzzards. But no, not now, not here, drugs have complicated things—too many Users, too many Purveyors—all equally guilty. They shrink my experience…Selfish me wants more, always more.

Yes, I walk in the footprints of my ancestors back through time when humans passed freely across this river, before lines and boxes and color barriers, before Texans, Mexicans, Christians, Muslims and all the rest… 

So what about the rock art: so old, so beautiful, so human, do I see tapestry or snakeskin or does it matter? I think, yes, it matters. And yes, I could do that; I could peck stone with pebbles and make art.

I wish myself a thousand years ago, scratching and painting on rock, cocking an Atyl-Atyl, launching an obsidian dart…We eat tonight—a beautiful hare. I pray for it. I pray for the rain, the sun, the moon, the wind and my family.  

Smoke scents the air. Smell the rabbit roast. It tastes good too. The wind warms my face, it roars in my ears…

…With my back to a wall that bars me from Mexico, I gaze at ancient marks, walking in the footsteps of my ancestors, my mind drifting a thousand years away.

Confluence of Seminole Canyon River and Rio Grande near Comstock (pictograph shown right).

 (NEXT ESSAY: BEEF DUNGEON)