Even to those who have seen you only in pictures, you are a mind-boggling sight, a colossal spectacle, an enormous tear in the earth, a vast and bewildering sea of textures and colors — of rocks and boulders, towers and steeples, buttes and plateaus, valleys and gullies; of cream and gray limestone, red Hermit Shale, black lava, gray slate and burgundy sandstone; of juniper and piñon and fir.
But to us who have touched you, to us who have had our senses flooded with your presence, to us who have been caught up in your spell, to us who have been surrounded by your immense beauty and stilled by your awesome silence, to us who have lain at your feet and walked above your head and laid our hands on your heart, to us who have seen you in all seasons, in fair weather and foul, at day’s break and at day’s end, yet who always seem to feel the pull to return and see you just one more time — ah, to us you are more than a vision and a revelation, more than a miracle and a triumph, more than a jubilation and a hallelujah.
To us you are alive.
For we have seen you move and breathe. And we have felt your changing moods.
We have seen you when you were nostalgic. We have camped alongside your river spine and have seen you lower your eyes at sunset amid the splendor of blazing spires and smoldering taluses, remembering earlier years — before Christ, before Moses, before man — when the same sun retreated behind the same ridge, and the same river rushed relentlessly on.
We have seen you when you were angry. We have stood above your head in the winter cold, shivering while the wind whistled through the teeth of the juniper trees, and watched the cloud-shadows run across your body, rippling your muscles, making you grimace behind rocks and scowl in shadows, giving you a menacing look that chilled us more than the cold. You were incensed then, enraged over ancient wrongs, the terrible power of your wrath exploding as the sunlight glanced off red rocks in flashes of anger, and we were frightened and shaken, terrified by a fury that was massive and deep, pent up and unspeakable.
We have seen you when you were sad and somber. We have sat at your feet at daybreak, when the shadowy low light was melancholy and as luminous as pearl-glow, and have watched you weep in a morning rain, with tears running like rivers down your weathered cheeks, streaming through rocky crevices, washing across water-smoothed boulders, pouring down in shower-falls, flooding into widening pools, and we have felt your sorrow. It was the sorrow of the ages, the weary, immense sorrow that wells up from someplace deep within and long ago, the sorrow that engulfs the old when they awaken alone before dawn.
We have seen you when you were playful. We have sat at Hopi Point beneath a spring sky and watched you fling colors about like a child, marrying hues that were never wed before, making lavenders dance with tans, corals with limes, oxbloods with blues, painting trees purple and rocks red. We have watched you while you frolicked in the sunshine — No school today! — playing games with our senses, hide-and-seek games in which you cloaked your chimneys and towers in shadows, then pushed them out from behind walls we thought were thicker and cliffs we thought were hills; dress-up games in which you showed us such stunning sights in such rapid profusion and on such a stupendous scale that we became giddy and confused, unable to concentrate on any single view because the next one always seemed more lovely and more profound.
We have seen you when you were thoughtful and contemplative. On a cloudless autumn day that was like silver, we have walked down along your trails and have seen you spread out amidst the relics and the ruins of the ages, resting in the sunshine, pondering, imagining, meditating, your brow furrowed with thought. Your thoughts then were our thoughts, about nature and man, brothers at heart, but foes instead of friends; and we wondered together when they would walk again hand in hand.
We have seen you when you were happy. We have watched you from atop Moran Point after a cold, late-summer rain had ended, and have seen you throw out your arms in exultation when the clouds parted. You were joyous then, radiant and resplendent, ecstatic, ebullient, exuberant, shimmering with sunlight, giggling with colors, laughing with delight, and your joy lightened our hearts and gave us hope.
We have seen you when you were serene. We have stood on your shoulders at the North Rim and watched you welcome a mantle of snow with a quiet that silenced the wind and a dignity that stilled the sky; and we have sensed the deep peace within you — the mother-calm, the halcyon heart, the tranquility born from the sea. Your white peace enveloped us in a cocoon of silence, hiding us from time, shielding us from the world, and we were at ease and at peace and at home.
We have seen you when you were generous and expansive. On the green days of summer, we have stood by your side from dark to dark and watched as you gave yourself, in all your majesty and splendor, to the innocent and the jaded, to the believers and their doubters, to the lovers and the lonely. We have stood, mesmerized and enthralled, while you emerged like a rose unfolding from the black abyss of your bed, slowly stretching out your arms in welcome to thousands of visitors, graciously showing off your colors — your lavenders, tinged with saffrons and creams, beiges and blues; your reds, lightened with pinks and corals, darkened with sorrels and bays; your yellows — earth yellows all — ochres and tans, mustards and golds; your blues, the smoke-blue haze that caresses you, the zenith-blue sky that hovers over you, the muddy-blue river that sculpts your sides; your greens, midnight, forest, parsley, sage; your purples, the deep purples of eggplant and plum, reddened with clarets and vermilions; your oranges, burnt and muted, glowing with fire. All day we have stood and watched while you revealed your beauty to us. And as you slipped reluctantly back into night, we have stayed waiting, overwhelmed but unsatiated, hoping for one more flash, praying for one more glimpse, hungering still for another day, when we could again worship amidst your layered pagodas and temples, your wind-ravished sacristies of stone, your ancient altars of time.
Yes, to us who have spent our lives trying to know you, trying to get our fill of your beauty and understand your spell, to us you have many moods, moods that are so intense and powerful that as they have changed, they have changed us, restoring and enriching us, filling us with joy and love, with hope and faith, with wonderment and awe; moods that have strengthened us and made us weak, frightened us and given us solace, spellbound us and set us free; moods that have made you not a canyon to look at, but a friend to share with.
And so to us you live and will never die.
This essay was originally published in our April 1981 issue.