Gift Shop in Sedona, But Could be Anywhere, USA

by Nancy Sobanik

Hand-wrought silver and turquoise
glinting on black velvet. T shirts lining
walls like crows perched on a power line.
Lore proclaimed with pithy graphics,

or sporting images of towering
buttes and spires, all in cotton-poly
Made In China to adorn the chests of buyers.
I decide to not add to the pile of shirts I ignore.

Instead I set out to hike the Spencer Trail,
thinking about The Long Walk of 1864,
and the 3,500 Diné Navajo who died
during brutal expulsion from their lands.

Clay dust, rock and sandstone scree.
Ring tailed geckos and red ants.
This stunning, miserly land, where nights
grit the cold light of stars in their teeth,

and day, each day is an endless
sky pressing a blue scalpel against bone,
witness to these arid canyons of stone.
The Navajo returned, and with no trinkets
in my pockets, I head for home.