So What If We All Want Redemption
Dear Grandpa,
Can the desert rescue you from night terrors, make you stop throwing punches in your sleep? Can a Temple of the Sun, a lifeless sandstone mass, erase what you saw in Germany–burnt down churches filled with bodies? Can millions of years of beautiful erosion in the earth resurrect your wife’s brother?
You tell me about a desert landscape where sandstone castles and chimneys tower above the road. You found refuge there, sleeping many nights under the moon and the Milky Way. You drove hundreds of miles out of your way to find rest from dreams of bombs and death. You talk about the desert. You only dream about the bombs. You keep returning to the Temple of the Moon, praying for redemption.
Can a Grand Wash, a river bed, cleanse a haunted soul? Can a cottonwood tree teach you how to weep like the black desert varnish on canyon walls? Can the song of a canyon wren teach you to speak softly to your children?
You tell me, your granddaughter, that once you stopped to help a local farmer mend his fence on your way through a tiny town called Grover. You told me it had rained for days in that desert place, and the mud was thick. You helped a farmer because you grew up a farmer in the west before you became a soldier avoiding barbed wire meant for your decapitation.
Can the sound of water in the desert fill a broken heart? Can a rip in the earth’s surface, a grand monocline, swallow a sorrow deeper than the earth’s core? Can the moon rise high enough over Entrada monoliths to light our way?
You tell me it can.
I believe you.
Love,
Your Anne Marie