Angel Peak (Long Time 1977)

/ Daniel Swearingen

She whispers, not breathing, at least not so that I can see, she bathes there in the cover of red rocks just like when she was fifteen. She’s at the two o’clock marker in the shadow of the Angel peak, I’m sixteen or fifty-five now, not no more than yesterday’s dream. The sandstone, looks past petrified mummies, the badlands of the San Juan basin to the back of a wet brown hued lady. “It was “such a long time”, she sings, the pool of clay seems clear at her feet, just sparkling minerals, dropping diamonds of sun beneath her wings.

The world has stopped, moving, and the sun would still it’s shine. The triune strata of the Kirtland Shale, The San Jose Formation, and Nacimiento Formation, bending to catch the sound of her voice singing Boston to me.

“Funny there would be music here”, I think I say, and then I wish there was stars, for maybe under the seven stars, this would all be a different dream, not real, not her making me dare, to be what maybe I can’t perceive.

Her fingers like the canyon, they bend and keep moving, bringing, the raw colors of the world to me. “You’re coming back to find me”, her voice, teasing, the sage carpet of the ancient ocean bending to see what I see.

She whispers, not breathing, at least not so that I can see, “it’s just outside of your front door”, and the angels come down from the peak, and they play with her. And just like the mystery of the song in the Kutz Canyon, she continues to sing to me. “I’ve got to keep on chasing that dream, though I may never find it, I’m always just behind it”. And the angel’s just fifteen, but she’s older than the peak, for it seems the vaults of canyons seem to echo, what she repeats, for a long time, all my life for a long time.

She whispers, not breathing, at least not so that I can see…10.7.2016 – דָּנִיֵּאל 

  • All rights to lyrics “Long Time” – Tom Schotz (Boston)

37 thoughts on “Angel Peak (Long Time 1977)”

  2. “She whispers, not breathing, at least not so that I can see, “it’s just outside of your front door”, and the angels come down from the peak, and they play with her” Great prose! Love your writing.

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  8. Your wonderful Angel Peak, took this old man back to a wonderful time in my life. Mr. Massee does a wonderful job with his cover, on another favorite of mine. Thank you.

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