Sego Canyon

There can be something bewitching about pictographs or rock art. They exist all over the West. Some are more recent bordering on the historical while others reach back 10,000 years or more.

The older ones are the most beguiling, at least to me. They all have this invitation to interpretation that in the end leaves one befuddled. Yes you can see the bighorn sheep, or deer, or beaver, or buffalo; the men with bows and arrows.

Then there are others, especially with beings represented by otherworldly forms. Was this how the ancient people saw themselves? Were these gods or beings from their dreams or hallucinations? Were these otherworldly visitors. Even the most rational of us dare not conjure a coherent explanation, nor dismiss even the wildest.

We are left with these remarkable proofs of what we can never understand, Descartes be-damned. They are monuments to an ancient past we can never visit even in our imagination. The people took the time to make these marks on the timeless buff colored cliffs. They stood on sand and clay that has by now made its way to the sea. And they left something they thought important, beautiful, or profound for others to remember or ponder.

I doubt we are the audience they intended, but here in the sage and dirt and sun we are the audience they have. And while we may not appreciate them for what they were created for, we still share the same human capacity for wonder and are left haunted by what others have left long after they have returned to dust.