Carrizo Wash

I’m not far from the Anza Borrego desert in California. It is the largest state park in California and the second largest within the continental United States after Adirondack Park in New York.

The park is named after Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and the Spanish word borrego, for bighorn sheep.

Eons ago the desert floor was an ancient seabed and it is to this day festooned with tiny seashells. I was amazed at this when I visited the area and camped to experience the wonder of sunrise and the hot breath of the desert when no one else was around.

It was a poetic inspiration for me and the result was a poem entitled, “Carrizo Wash”.

A desert vast to see and feel

What is true and what is real.

But streaks and scratches on the land,

Did tear the nature from the sand.

It’s tracks of cars — tire scarred,

Old bed of sea now wheel marred.

Barren dry, yet full of life,

Eroded by the weather’s knife.

Granite grays and sandy stone

Black basalt and sun-bleached bone.

Sages grow in pale hue

And green and cream rendezvous.

Fossil dunes from tranquil past

Beneath a sea that didn’t last.

This solitude with crusts of shell,

What ancient day felt your knell?

Thou sacred sweep, what is worse:

No ocean cover or man’s traverse?

Intruding sounds in paradise

Make this silent place die twice.