A Sedona Afternoon

No doubt about it, you can immediately see

driving in from the south

there’s something extraordinary about the Red Rock Country

of Sedona—

There’s a palpable beauty here, for one thing,

in the massive figurative formations of red stratified rock;

years ago just about every one of them acquired their own,

individual names—

Anyone through here usually comes to know at least

one or two of the names.

Yes, it is all quite apparent,

as my brother & I drive in an ongoing stream of cars

on this first of a perfect weather weekend this year,

we hear—

Still March,

and how it’s drawing in such a flood of sightseers & tourists—

Famous New Age touted Sedona

—many have heard some rumor regarding its paranormal lore,

its energy vortexes & strange lights

—UFOs it seems have favored the place

in years past—

appears to me today more like the vortex of tourists.

And the obvious real estate boom

you can see has sure drawn in the new money—

It smacks of anytown taken over by development these days.

The metaphysical types who are supposedly at home here

must be hiding out in these parts somewhere.

In the bookstore, in “Uptown,”

right amidst the flocking antique, gift-shopping

& gallery-going & ice cream-licking crowd,

about the first thing she behind the counter

said was,

It’s time for me to move out.

And when I asked since when

—the change I could see was all so blatant—,

she replied,

It all started in the 80s,

& it’s been nonstop since.

The man working alongside of her

—his graying long hair & bearded face & dangling amulet

I wasn’t to see anywhere else here, not today—

said,

Any place that’s beautiful, they do it.

But what of the phenomena—? I began to ask.

To which he replied,

You have to stick around awhile for that,

go into the back country,

then you might start seein’ things—

UFOs?

Oh, I see ‘em all the time.

You see ‘em all the time?

Comin’ & goin’ all the time.

In fact,

seemed like nothing unusual to him,

though he might have said it just to say it

& really meant the tourists, for all I knew,

or was playfully testing my gullibility.

Though,

after quickly glancing around,

as if to keep this a secret—perhaps not wanting to stir up

the idle curiosity of any of the tourists,

who might have happened to be standing around—,

so hushed it came out,

he said,

Now you might also see… fairies.

And so later, I couldn’t help but wonder,

How much longer

before the fairies move out?

March 2001