Poem: Burning Men

Burning Men

One hundred degrees or more in the high desert
Red Rocks State Park on 14 between 58 and 178
On the way to Bishop and the Eastern Sierra
For a series of day hikes with my wife:
Little Lakes Valley, Convict Lake,
Devil’s Post Pile, Rainbow Falls,
River Trail out of Agnew Meadow
To Shadow Lake above the San Joaquin

Turn left at the faded green sign
Barely visible white letters gone rusty red
Drive along the dusty road
Past the devilish pipe organ hoodoos
Past the empty stop-and-pay kiosk
Into the nearly empty parking lot
The small visitors center closed
On this first day after Labor Day

Quiet, desolate, bright and hot
Only an old, battered, dust covered VW Van in sight
Spare mounted on the front, two bicycles on the rear
We carry our lunch to one of two tables
Beneath a shade giving trellis
Amid stunted cottonwoods and soft green olives
At the other table, two shirtless, sandaled,
Long haired, tan young men
One reddish blond, bearded and ponytailed
The other smooth faced with a mop of loose brown curls
Dancing in the light hot breeze
Both so lean their hips barely support
Their loose fitting shorts

Fresh from Burning Man, on their way to Santa Barbara
They share a meal of fresh raw vegetables
Chopped into a large metal bowl
Dipping in their chopsticks
Like birds feeding at the edge of a pond.
We talk briefly. The van is a ’78.

I think but don’t say, You are my children.
I am of that tribe that gathered near Woodstock
For 3 Days of Peace and Music in ’69. I was there
With my beads and bib overalls, my dark hair
Touching my shoulders, slim like you,
Like you my unknown future stretching out before me
Like a two lane in the desert, puddles of heat
Shimmering in the dips of the  blacktop
Road fever always simmering
Not knowing that someday I would meet my past
Going in the opposite direction
To a different destination.