Desert Quartet"No compass can orient me here, only a pledge to love and walk the terrifying distances before me." So begins Terry Tempest Williams as she invokes the lure and drama of the Colorado Plateau. Her experience is related with the emotional depth and in the brilliantly lyrical language we have come to expect from her. Williams's journey into the canyons of Southern Utah reveals an erotics of place. With the four elements - Earth, Water, Fire, and Air - as metaphoric pathways to understanding, she dares to explore what it might mean to make love to the land. Williams comes to see how the desert exposes, stretches, and inspires us. There is no separation between our bodies and the body of the Earth. |
Common terms and phrases
add more sticks Anasazi apparition over ripples bathe with frogs beads of tur blouse slip blow Blue notes breath cairns calms the desert Canyons within canyons cense Centaur Chesler Park COYOTE'S CANYON creek and walk creek is cold curl currents like jazz DESERT QUARTET dried cottonwood leaves dried frog floats Druid Arch engulf the triangle Exhale fate that determines Fearn Cutler feel fire is growing flares in darkness Grand Canyon green room grip stones hair and secure hand that cools hands and knees imagine beads impulse to bathe Inhale Joint Trail Juniper knees in red legs open light the shreds limestone MARY FRANK pinyon quoise have replaced races spill receive without apology replaced the sunken rushing water turns sandstone shreds of kin skin of clothes slickrock slip on effort Stanford University stones in shallow teepee TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS turquoise twigs and lean UNSPOKEN HUNGER Utah water like jazz Water music