For Ellen Meloy fans

[JW]

As I read and research some of the significant and funniest and most talented writer's, who like me and a couple of our friends, constantly talk and write about the outdoors, the beauty, ravens, and sufficiently and consistently enough to make our pals, dates and co-workers, vomit when we keep changing the subject to the outdoors, I continue to read and write within and about the planet's most outstanding places. It is hard not to become an Ellen Meloy fan if you read about and visit/canyoneer the AZ-Utah slots.

Below are a few poetic remembrances about a lady many of us can deeply identify with, her pursuits and her artistry. Her work is worth reading.

Editor's note: We just heard a couple weeks before going to press that Ellen Meloy, author of, among others, "The Anthropology of Turquoise", had passed away. I only met Ellen once, two summers ago, in Moab, while I was on a tour signing copies of "When in Doubt, Go Higher: The Mountain Gazette Anthology". She could not make the signing, but was gracious enough to seek me out later, while I was tipping a couple of cervezas with Jose Knighton. We talked then about her writing for the Gazette. Her first piece for us, "Trout Stream Through Mars" appeared in #105. She said she looked forward to submitting more stories to us.

We have received two poems commemorating Ellen, one from Knighton, who managed Back of Beyond bookstore in Moab for many years, and another from long-time Gazette friend/contributor Katie Lee. We decided to print these poems in the Obituary section as our hats-off to a great writer we wish we knew better.
MJF

Total Eclipse for Ellen Meloy

The harvest moon has been stolen away
at the peak of her fullness and brilliance!
That sudden shadow, empty and immense,
as wide as our world or our stunned dismay
leaves us stranded on this coldest, darkest night.
How I wish this metaphor were only
skin deep or held some ambiguity,
but her language was as deep as delight,
deep as the river, deep as deep could go.
I imagine the stalled and stopped San Juan,
refusing to be her Styx or Rubicon,
waiting for her before it dares to flow.
But her eclipse's light will not return
however long our sun decides to burn.

José Knighton

For Ellen,

My Sandstone Sister

Hello!
my Sandstone Sister
dim the lights
I can't see through your wild
unruly hair
to all the Ravens gathered there
in celebration of your flight
to join their chat with words
that rattle, shake and
cause concern amid the flock
of lesser birds.
those sleek, black, shinny ones
are jealous-they need your flair
to spark their lingo
and they love red hair
Off you go!

my Sandstone Sister, so
let me have my private thoughts
of where you are and what
you're doing. even though
my heart's a redrock
run-off flood, untamed,
my face two slickrock cheeks in rain;
I have to let you go where you must go

Hola! que paso?
but of course, the san juan
knows your name.
the green and yampa spread your
flaming mop
across their ever lovin' rock
for all to see. you will return to me.
each time I walk
those sandstone trails
or run the river,
I'll find you there, pressed, with love
against the stone, forever.

Katie Lee

©Mountain Gazette Publishing 12/01/2004

Like Ellen and a few, I used to have a "flaming mop", that I no longer let hang to my shoulders, these days, this age. Those of us who have lived this red-headed thing, sometimes know, and reflect that we shouldn't inhabit the redrock canyons above the luminescent sands and the UV of the sky above and the desert reflectivity below. Our skin becomes a metaphore and reflection of the light. Still, there isn't anywhere else...

But the light, the canyons, and yes, some ostreperous ravens, and deep-high places, call us. Once you begin the explorations and the awareness, and the journey...It becomes the meaning.

Ravens are a PITA, they're smart, reciprocal, quick and connected. They've outlived human cultures in the canyons whose beauty we love. When I try to look in remote and obscure places, one or more of their ilk, will try to hassel me. I have to restrain myself from coming to their terms, I'm the visitor, after all, but I still make a finger gesture and they seem to get it. What do they know?

Here is Ellen's last commentary about those "featherbombs" from the last paragraph of "Raven's Exile". A Raven in Dedolation Canyon? Why, those two-bit, no-good, lunchmeat-breathed, bunny-sucking anarchist featherbombs, they slip in as soon as we're out the door.

Thank you for reading.
_________________
What a magnificent time to LIVE! - Everett Ruess.

Since my house burned down, I now own a better view of the rising moon. - Masahide.