Blended Colors

As I am leaving the Grand Canyon, I challenge the night in a blind and known scenery. Indian cabins are invisible on the road, absent dream catchers stalls flying in summer wind, American road trip folklore. And my early sleep dances with my fatigue, hung and blown with the stars.

My next morning is therefore a bit lazy. I am traveling so awfully quiet, empty thoughts in my heart, in red and Navajos landscapes. Scenery is getting clearer, dryer; it is drawing new sculptures as I am reaching New Mexico that I will barely cross by mistake. I am entering my frightened state, my yearned state. I am getting closer. Tic Tac. Boum Boum. I embrace Colorado State’s one thousand and one shades, revealing for now a greenish muddy canyon. Because I am exhausted, empty, lost; I delay my wonder state, I settle for the library in order to write. When it is closing time, I long, I do nothing, I write more, I think, I get ready for tomorrow’s Mesa Verde. Ute Mountain incredible sunset surprises me on Walmart prosaic parking lot, it is my window through the world, my spontaneous fascination, my inspiration for another day. America might possess a peculiar heavens’ chemistry to create such flamboyant sunsets.

This flamboyant sun is only matched by the next morning rise through another strange mountain on the other side of the horizon.
This new day is still uncertain though. Awaken by my frost window in a dark morning, my fatigue doesn’t run away. Darkened by my dreams, present is fleeing away. I don’t understand my heart’s mechanism but it feels so heavy. Maybe the solitude of my circle mind is starting to get me bored….?
I drive towards Mesa Verde National Park, advised more than desired. I am happy to leave Arizona red earth as if I had seen enough of it; I blend into hidden life on the giant green snowed flat and high land, I am discovering ingenuous people prints from one thousand years ago both on cliffs and canyons.
I am not really moved though, I am not fully changed. Yet, I am. It is only another process, it travels differently. It is not shiny, it is not really cheerful; it is showing the gap between my soul and my heart. I get lost in my steps, my mind is losing it and I burst. Some memories of fears, but mostly fears about a future still drowning in the fog. I don’t know what to do, where to go. I feel like I am afraid to make a choice once again.

Then, the sun starts hiding in bright clouds, the landscapes ends and I reach Durango, a cute little Gold Rush town, blown by Silverton train, whose brick little shops shelters a perfectly colorful coffee shop. It matches my poetic heart. Books are desks. Chairs are velvet. Lights are teapots. Chai Latte are bland but it feels like home. I thus sink into the couch for the day, running my words from my white notebook to my dark screen.

The next morning cold sun brights my heart and untangles my mind. I get one of those tiny but powerful revelations, suddenly and absolutely coloring my feelings about life. I call each cog another name, I understand my ego’s tyranny and I finally can acknowledge, define, what I want for my present, leaving future where it belongs: unknown and beautiful consequence of my present desires.
My thoughts therefore get lost in the most beautiful way: in my window’s landscapes. I feel light again and let my breath being changed by Wood Creek Summit hard mountains, by the paradoxically frozen Rio Grande, by the white sun, by the desert and changed scenery, by the green rocky clay under the snow…

I then reach the Great Sand Dunes National Park, the biggest of North America, which I climb like Sahara desert. Snow hides under grains of dust. Dunes sun warms my face but wind is freezing my back. I linger in a white meditation as ravens sing, as dunes tumble down the mountain’s sides. The horizon is endless.
And I run downhill like a kid, I bounce and I feel like I am walking on the moon.

I drive towards Pueblo, my stop for the night, in a daze so tired I am. In an emergency state so loud the car roars and I fear it is breaking down. I fall asleep so early in a warmer but less majestic atmosphere than yesterday.

The road I follow to Coloradan Gold Rush mines is pleasant, simple and bright. I arrive at Cripple Creek which deliciously cradles my steps despite its too many casinos, I get to Victor which gives me the chill, weird blend of museum town and social poverty emptying silent streets. Visiting those old gold mines lights up my senses though. My mind sparkles with Denver’s roads’ promises. My mind runs towards new tales.

After a few hours in the history museum that definitely feeds my dreams, I take new paths, I follow Indians’ prints and cross the beautiful Ute Pass towards more red mountains. I am trying to reach Colorado Springs, calling for me for unknown reasons. Maybe because of the Garden of Gods’ red rocks falling down in small canyons. Maybe for the mountains’ back view. Maybe for the old library, perfect haven for the writer I would like to be.

I awake all sunny in Colorado Spring, linger for a I Hop breakfast and hit the road when it has cleared up. I drive towards Denver, or more accurately to the Rockies.
I glance at Downtown in the far, I can feel the excitation of being so close to what my heart feared two weeks ago. But is is not time yet. What awaits for me after Boulder is the goal of my day, feverish palpitations in my eyes. Colorado keeps blowing up my imagination, it runs thousands of dreams. Thus, as my tales are written in my heart, I wind through red mountains, piercing one river’s course, the exact one that draws the heights, and I get to Eske Park whose lake reflects a few Rockies… The three states I have driven through lately are scarlet but Colorado grows hundreds of ideas, thousands of trees, while the other western states – Utah and Arizona – keep it dry and virgin. Desert.

And even if I follow Colorado State maze, I don’t meet the main river; I cross instead the Arkansas River meanders so far from its Midwest starting point….
Then, I officially enter the Park, fleeting moment of grace, touched by the sun when there is only clouds in my back on my way back. I try to hike around a snowed lake, invisible, but the wind is so powerful it moves mountains and jeopardizes my cramponed walk. I turn back, glimpsing at a few peculiar mounts, so fairly close in the blizzard. Back in my safe moving shelter, I am grateful for the wind sending away some bright landscapes. Rockies definitely change at the border. Here, they get round and evergreen shapes higher than in Canada. They get such a unique color, both their green rock and red soil haven’t covered in white.
I cherish my tours and detours, followed by some deer sometimes, I admire the view, dream of other hikes another day and appreciate this unexpected ride, even shortened by winter. This tiny tiny part of it still mesmerizes me.

I would like to write poems about Colorado, make elegies as big as the butterfly escaping from my chrysalis heart through my breath. Colorado doesn’t’ brag about a bling bling beauty, it majestically shines with a whouah perfectly matching my soul.
I would like to praise my speechless Colorado, immortal in my heart. I would like to put its red lands in rhyme but, instead, I pile up trees in a prosaic line. Instead, I cherish the peculiar breath of my detours.
Do we call Colorado the colorful state because its mountains change colors after each turn, because the earth is red under the green rocky clay, under multiple trees? Because the sky is bluer than blue birds except when it is grey like today?
Maybe. And it colors my heart as well. I can tell stars, planets and landscapes fit my state of grace. I blossom like a Coloradan butterfly, change my shape, stretch my wings and emerge from my mobile chrysalis. It is not the end of my journey yet, it is the end of my wandering road. It is the end of absolute and pleasant loneliness, it is the end of giant landscapes.