Glen

by Alvin Colville

Canyon is the name. Glen Canyon.

     I lived in the Colorado plateau with my mistress, the Colorado River. Yeah, I know, a lot of people never heard of me. Others say I’m dead, drowned, but they don’t know me. I’m not dead, only on an extended vacation. I’ll be back eventually.
     There was a time over forty years ago I was strong and healthy. We had a good life, the river and I, there on the plateau.
     Back in the good old days we romped and played, talking, even singing to one another. There we had many friends. Trees and bushes, grass and flowers lived there with us. Oh, we had arguments once in a while when the river, bless her heart, would get angry with us and punish us for sassing her, but we always made up and life was good again.
                                                      

by Katie Lee

     There were lots of creatures there with us. It’s hard to remember them all. Lizards were constantly racing over my stony walls, small toads and frogs hopped and sang in the small pools and streams. There were birds everywhere, singing, chirping birds in the trees, in the bushes, on the sandy beaches, and on my canyon walls.
     Then on the larger scale there were deer, bighorn sheep, and an occasional big cat. These creatures lived in harmony with us in the plateau heartland.
There were many smaller mammal type creatures too, such as beaver, mice, moles and more. Sometimes I can’t remember them all very clearly. It’s been a long time.
I can remember the many branches of the river, some large like the San Juan, others smaller like the Dirty Devil or the Escalante. Then there were dozens of small streams like Hidden Passage or Music Temple. Some of the little canyons had streams, some didn’t, and some had only intermittent water flowing in them. These small side canyons had an annoying tendency of hiding beautiful treasures. Treasures to be seen only by those who were willing to spend the time and the effort to work their way into the depths of the narrow slots and over the obstructions in their path.

by Daniel B. Luten

Amazing treasures they were. Often it would be a jewel like pool, smoky blue in the half light casting a perfect reflection of the narrow slot of sky above the dark, narrow walled cove. Other treasures would be a merry little stream bouncing over a cascade of rock and pools lined with red, white, pink, yellow or blue flowers. There may have been an arch over the canyon or a hanging garden watered by a dropping spring seeping out of the sandstone cliff. Maybe the treasure would be a sparkling waterfall plunging over a high pour-off into a crystal clear pool. The variety was endless. I can’t remember all the treasures hidden by the miniature canyons along the river. As I said before, it’s been a long time.

     Back in the old days there were some—what is the word—homo sapiens?—that lived there with us. They were interesting but harmless creatures who built a few structures to live in and to store their food. They even wrote their life story and daily thoughts on my walls once in a while. I didn’t object. They seemed to respect the river and me, and never did anything painful or obnoxious to us. They left a long time ago. I don’t remember why.
     Yes, life was good then. We all lived in peace and harmony, each giving to the needs of the other. Little did we know that harm would one day befall us and turn our paradise into a choking hell.
     Yes, it happened. One day some other homo sapiens, the harsh, white, ugly kind, came. They were loud and abusive, not the quiet, brown kind we knew years ago. We worried about them but finally decided they were harmless enough even if they were trashy.
     Wrong! They began to poke holes in my walls, and dig big holes along the river. One day they began building a big pile of stuff with rocks and other things. This pile reached almost to the top of my walls. Then they did something to the pile and the river had to stop. It couldn’t get by the pile.

     Eventually my walls were filled with the trapped river and all my friends of the canyons died. Their homes were drowned. The river wept in apology, but could do nothing to stop the destruction.
     Oh, the river kept bringing soil, sand, and rocks from the highlands but could not carry her load down the canyon any more so she left it in the pond made by the homo sapiens.
     Now the river is in prison, and me, Glen Canyon, I lie beneath the weeping, prisoned river waiting. I am sad and lonely. My friends are mostly gone, I have not seen sunlight for many years. But I despair not. To make my body of walls and arches, coves and slots, pools, and streams, took many, many years. I wait.

     by Phil Pennington

     The load the river has brought from the highlands will fill my walls some day and the pond will be of only silt and mud. One day the pile of rocks will groan with boredom and decide to free the river from her prison. Time is slow but it is constant. If the homo sapiens do not release my river mistress from her prison I may have to release her myself. Oh, it will happen. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day it will happen.
     When we are again free it will be but a short while until my walls again are clean and fresh. The little canyons will rejoice once more in all their splendor.
     As the Phoenix rose from the ashes to live again so shall I, Glen Canyon, rise from my bed of silt to live once more a free, mysterious, and enchanting piece of paradise.

by Katie Lee

by Katie Lee