Hard Rock

[Nazz]

Weathered men lived on weathered slopes.
At Vernon camp dry winds sing through rotted planks,
shot riddled scrap, cracked tires, a stripped chassis.
Tires go brittle in the desert, fissures open.

Beneath any nameless peak
hard rock fortune lay just out of reach.
Hardship men came with blasting caps all the same.
Who's to say what’s out of reach on those slopes?
Get deep inside them, lose all sense of depth.
See rich, barren seas where no sea can exist.
Ruins watch faint auburn tides roll in, recede.
Humboldt Range is a snowcapped tsunami.

Even cottonwoods are newly grotesque at Vernon.
A mesquite trunk splits in two with an awful shriek.
The trick is to see the sea where it cannot exist.
It changes color like fine silt, twilight dim.


Okay.... that's it. Must be time to get back on the road.

[saw]

beautiful work.....in the face of strip mined destruction, literally as well as figuratively.....the challenge to find beauty in the midst of abuse....

[Nazz]

Thanks Steve. Mining has gotten progressively more destructive with technological advances. Vernon dates from 1930s-50s I think, somewhere between Old West boomtown rats and apocalyptic Corporate Rape. They used to tunnel into hillsides; now sometimes they just cut down the entire hill. Anyway, here's a shot of the camp (with Humboldt Range on the horizon):




and "the road to Vernon":




And from the last bunch of posts, the storm on Pancake Flat:

[saw]

great photos, thanx for posting....when i see pictures like that i'm reminded how insignificant I am......even our buddy Obama, is still allowing mining companies to blow the entire top of the mountain off...
it's sickening.....

[SmileGRL]

wow. awesome pictures!

...pancake flat? really? the color of the sand actually reminds me of pancake batter...nice. thanks for sharing those.