What I found at the end of the canyon followed by a reflection

I wandered way up that canyon

That day in December, 1969

Outside of Chinle, Navaho country,

A canyon that had never seen a white man.

But was I even a man?

At 18 my whiteness had become a problem

As I fled the Vietnam war

With a time-bomb in my heart

To the only place that felt safe to me, the desert.

In that wild tapering place

I was almost prepared for when I reached the end

Where the brow of an unassailable wall

Cast a permanent shadow

Over a trickle of water Issuing like blood

From a never healing wound.

Under the canyon's brow there was a cave

A five minute scramble straight up.

In that cave were the remnants of an ancient fire

And bits of pottery older than America

With which I filled my pockets.

I left only the tracks of my shoes.

Now, 55 years later, I suspect that the spirits

Must have been discussing me in that cave.

I picture them betting against each other

On the odds of my living beyond 18.

For years I thought I was buying time

By promising to return those shards of pottery

To the cave at the end of the canyon,

But the truth is I had no intention of going back.

Stealing is a white man's way.

At least I can say

That I succeeded in defusing

The bomb in my heart.

Turned out there was time

For everything I had to do.
......................
This is a story I have been carrying around with me since 1969. The only bit that isn't accurate is, I was not alone but with a friend at the time. After graduating from high school, he and I spent the summer of 1969 working, to earn enough money to drive his jeep across Canada and down through the Dakotas to the Navaho reservation -- Navajo country -- to Many Farms near Chinle. We had learned that ground was being broken for the creation of Navaho Community College. Our plan, which was a little sketchy, (since the college had not been built yet, but was operating on a tiny budget at a large high school near the future college campus), was to volunteer at the college, in any capacity, just to get out of our f--king country, which was sending all our friends to Vietnam to kill, and be killed by, communists. Chuck was still 17, too young to be drafted, but I was prime stock for the cattle-drive (the draft). I was so pissed, I was studying anarchy, or at least seriously thinking of dedicating my life to civili disobedience. Luckily, I had just read Klyde Kluckholm's "The Navaho" which sparked the idea of exposing myself to a Native American culture, not out of intellectual curiosity, but for my sanity. It was out there in the desert over the next 3 months, that I wrote my manifesto, "Man Behind the Waterfall: A Justification for Introversion". Just the title says a lot about my state of mind and heart and mental health. I knew I was an introvert, but had yet to find the intrinsic power in introversion. When we explored the canyon and found the cave with the old fire and pottery, that was one of those moments when something momentous happened for me that I was oblivious to at the time. Taking the pottery was an act of desperation. That is why I am imagining in this poem that the spirits were gambling on my fate. Even though I never returned those chips of pottery (but mght yet) I managed to respect them. They have been holding space at the center of a medicine wheel in the back field for about 20 years. I am looking out at that medicine wheel right now as I write. I am still the Man Behind the Waterfall, but I no longer feel I have to justify myself. Sadly, my country has changed very little.