The Serpents of Paradise

Abbey is a beautiful writer.  He paints a picture for the reader by not telling us about the desert but showing us the “the voice of the desert rising to a demented howl and blotting out sky and sun behind yellow clouds of dust, sand, confusion, embattled birds, last year’s scrub-oak leaves, pollen, the husks of locusts, bark of juniper . . .”  I have never been to the desert, but Abbey knows exactly how to make his words jump off the page and pull the reader into this Hellish, magnificent place.

When describing the land, I love how Abbey juxtaposes the idea of the canyon and tableland as a red wasteland, a Hellish atmosphere, with the beauty and wonderment of such things as a yucca or cactus flower.  He sees a paradise of life and beauty within the dead land.

"Life not crowded upon life as in other places but scattered abroad in spareness and simplicity, with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid aggainst the lifeless sand and barren rock."

My favorite essay was “The Serpents of Paradise.”  He has a unique eye for his surroundings and uses the language masterfully to describe the desert.  “The pinyon jays are whirling in garrulous, gregarious flocks from one stunted tree to the next and back again, erratic exuberant games without any apparent practical function.”  The smallest details that the average person takes for granted Abbey manifests into a spectacular event.  He has a phenomenal grasp of the language, something I hope that I can one day perfect.  He uses detailed and extravagant lists to describe everything.  The lists do not slow down his work but only makes it more fluent and visual.  Usually my lists are clunky and distracting completely disrupting my piece.

Abbey seems to have quite a fascination with snakes.  His encounter with the rattlesnake is terrifying.  One of my worst fears is being caught in a pit of snakes, which is just behind being covered in spiders.  I find it interesting that Abbey struggles with killing the snake at such a close range when in fact he doesn’t hesitate to brutally kill a harmless rabbit in the following essay.  This obviously contradicts his statement that it is his “duty as park ranger to protect, preserve and defend all living things within the park boundaries, making no exceptions.  Also, why would he prefer to kill a man rather than a snake?  Maybe this backs his fascination with snakes.

More than once Abbey becomes a snake.  He watches from a snake’s-eye level as the two gopher snakes put on a performance for him.  He is not afraid to get down in the dirt, up close and personal with the couple.  Even when they notice him and advance in his direction, he is “paralyzed by wonder” and does not move.  The fear that kicks so late would have kicked in as soon as I saw the snakes; I would have been at a much greater distance if even still around.  This could be why Abbey is such a great writer; he is not afraid to get into the shit.

“They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins . . . .”

Is this true?  He questions what the coyotes mean when yodeling at the moon or what dolphins are trying to tell us.  How does he know they aren’t whining?  Maybe they do lie awake weeping for their sins.  Do we know what animals are saying?

Summer mornings in my back yard are hidden from the golden rays of the lemony sun.  My house stands between a bright tangerine sunrise and my pre-pubescent face.  The newborn dewy grass tickles my bare feet and glides between my toes like a silk blanket.  I am not interested in the green, though.  I have my sights set on my great wall, a fence of mud and rocks.  A giant mound of dirt, my climbing wall, my Aggro Crag, is piled to the side of the yard.  I dig my hands into the soft clay and form figurines, soldiers of the Earth, to battle across the miniature Alps of suburbia.  I am a regular Picasso.  Worms and spiders and beetles claim there territory; they weave in and out of the hard, rocky mud as if they are weaving it together.

The chatter and singing of the airborne community is drowned out by the heavy artillery in my soon-to-be neighboring yards.  Ancient steel dinosaurs, Long-necks, Triceratops’, Stegosaurus’ dig their teeth and claws into the ground destroying and shortening my playground.  The metal and viscous banging of tools and machines sets a rather unique scene for my men going into battle.  As the the burning globe  peeks over the roof of my home, I fall out of the shadows of morning and into the light of war.