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Marcyn Del Clements

To Moab in a Piper Chieftain

We lift up from Salt Lake like a splatter duck, straight up off the tarmac ... the Wasatch Mountains, sifted with snow ... soon the eastern vista of the far Uintas, snowpowder dusted. At 200 knots ... the lakes ... names like Strawberry, Starvation, Scofield. Now down past Manti-La Sol and Patmos to the very edge of Desolation ... the Green River, brown and sensuous. The Grand River Valley with Nazca lines by desert rats ... we begin to see the persimmon buttes of Devil's Garden and, closer to Moab, the sugar-frosted Bookies. Now we turn and just below, an airport outpost in the desert: Canyonland Field.

our shadow small
over sage and rabbitbrush
banking to land