Our National Parks: Navajo National Monument

We skip down to Tsegi Canyon

through pine and fir lit in sun

until we cross Laguna Creek

and then up Keet Seel Canyon

with its own brown and flowing

stream that we cross and re-cross

fifty times or more following the

trail until we come to a bright white

waterfall tumbling down some forty

feet onto slippery moss and algae

that covers rocks at the bottom.

From here we climb up stony ledges

in the intense heat of afternoon,

until at last we espy the ever-so-high

gleaming cliff village of Keet Seel

shining in the sun with sandstone

living quarters for one hundred-fifty

souls seven hundred years ago who

busied themselves by grinding corn

with a blunt mono on a stone metate.

They kept turkeys for feathers and

grew squash, corn and beans in

watery seeps far below their roof

of rock and woven stone as we sit

and listen to the talking spirits so alive

that canyon time becomes our own.

* Keet Seel is in Navajo National Monument, near Kayenta, AZ. Hikers wishing to journey 8 miles into Keet Seel should obtain a hiker's permit first from Navajo National Monument.

See also my hub: Losing a Thousand Years at Mesa Verde