I wrote this poem, my 6th hybridanelle, hoping I’d be able to give a copy to the person who inspired it, a National Parks ranger stationed at Grand Canyon National Park, which I just recently visited.
There is a story behind the poem. But first the poem.
Cocoon
It was like a dream, a nightmare spanning years.
I drifted through a world of predators,
my larval soul awash in rapid fears.
One day I passed your station. You stopped me on the way.
You asked me where I went to and why my eyes were closed,
then handed me a sleeping bag and wished me well.
So with your gift, this orange coverture,
I found peace in the night, but in the day
I drifted through a world of predators.
My life was filled with terror behind impassive walls.
My thoughts were pumped with poison. In time I fled those cells.
One day I passed your station. You stopped me on the way
and questioned me with care—I would not sway;
you could not know what I had just escaped from.
I found peace in the night, but in the day
my blood was mixed with shadows, turned to serum-waste—
you listened to my answers, yet sensed what I withheld,
then handed me a sleeping bag and wished me well.
Your simple gift permitted me to travel,
to mend the fractured crystal of my mind.
You could not know what I had just escaped from.
I fled my own destruction into the fearsome world
to chance uncertain highways before my fate was sealed.
One day I passed your station. You stopped me on the way,
my fourth day on the asphalt running blind
with only pupal hopes—yet undiscerned—
to mend the fractured crystal of my mind.
Perhaps my eyes revealed the weight of iron woes.
You somehow glimpsed the quandary I would not dare expose
then handed me a sleeping bag and wished me well.
Those fibers offered metamorphosis…
It was like a dream, a nightmare spanning years
with only pupal hopes—yet undiscerned—
my larval soul awash in rapid fears.
In time I learned to fly erratic on the wind,
my dusty wings capricious upon the windblown fields—
One day I passed your station. You stopped me on the way,
then handed me a sleeping bag and wished me well.
As a fifteen year old, I had been a road-wandering runaway for four days when I found myself in the Grand Canyon National Park—hiking to the bottom of the canyon and back. This, I later realized, is something only an Olympic trainer or an uninformed teenager would consider doing. It was a grueling hike, thousands of feet in elevation, and through several climate zones.
A ranger stopped me about a mile half down the ten mile hike to the Colorado, when he saw that I wasn’t carrying any water. He was horrified, and told me there was no way I could expect to make it to the bottom and back without water, and when he realized he couldn’t talk me out of the hike, he shoved a gallon of water in my hands as he grumbled something about crazy youth.
I did make it down to the Colorado, where I watched the rapids boil for a bit before starting back. He was right about the water.
On my way back, he noted with some surprise that I was still alive, and ushered me into his ranger station, where he proceeded to express his feeling that I was a runaway and tried to get me to admit as much. I lied and lied and lied and he eventually gave up, but before letting me go he followed some instinct burning in his chest, and gave me a confiscated sub zero sleeping bag.
I lived in this sleeping bag for the next year and a half as I wandered a better part of the United States. It saw me through blizzards, wild thunder storms, silver cloth, hail, sleet and more. I’m pretty sure that if it were not for this random gift from a total stranger I wouldn’t be here to tell you about it today.
I wasn’t able to find the park ranger when I made it to the Grand Canyon. So late in the night, about 2am, I left a copy of the poem on a billboard beside the Bright Angel trailhead, the same trail I hiked so long ago. After this, I walked over to a point where I could look north over the Grand Canyon and asked god to look after the spirit that gave me that sleeping bag. As I did so, one of the brightest and longest shooting stars I’ve ever seen slid across the northern sky.
