A poet’s walkabout

On a solo personal odyssey, author and canyoneer Michael Engelhard rambled 120 canyons in a yearlong walkabout to “confront the mysteries of a world held fast by mountains,” where “invisible strands radiating from places of power catch the dreaming of different races.” He came back with eloquent observations of an “alien land, puckered with heat,” where “eternity stares from the beady eye of a lizard” and a dead swallowtail butterfly “leaves smudges of stardust” in his cupped hand.

Rummaging around in a brain packed with natural history factoids, ethnobotanical lore, Indian myths and political history, he unloads a writerly cache stirred by memory and spiked with passion. His ruminations honor winds and bears, thunderstorms and schist, spelunking slot canyons and shy desert fish, illuminating an ancient wilderness where “the flames of a campfire hollow out a winter night” and where “water running against the wilting of summer” still sings its sacred song.

-- Susan Dworski