Arches National Park
Driving south to Arches the churches change from LDS to Fountain of Faith to Fifth Assembly, and the landscape’s littered with forgotten handiwork, clay a waste of breath. Huge, clumsy bones and arches: Delicate Arch, a giant failed rib. Fin Canyon, Eye of the Whale. A prototype, first try. Garden of Eden, Balanced Rock—here He’s just messing around, a Child of Architects, leaving out His blocks. Nearby, rock faces are scratched with symbols drawn by early Us: men, bear claws, scrub jays, deer. Circles inside circles, symbols we forgot. What they didn’t draw: these arches. They took them for granted, couldn’t see the things I can’t stop looking at. We are happy in the sunlight, want to catch this light on these red rocks. So all of us hold our shining iPhones up before us. We use what we take for granted, beam images of what we love up to the sky.