Lost Villages

The basalt hills rise

like abandoned villages

from clouds of snow fog. 

Distance plays tricks on the eye here. I can never photograph the San Luis Hills the way I see them -- so close that every shadow and hollow is visible from my window. In the aftermath of snow, they stand like empty buildings in banks of white fog, like the mirage of a failed human settlement. 

I'm always a little dismayed by the way my mind projects the images and sounds of civilization onto this barren landscape. The wind sounds like the voice of a radio announcer; the hills look like broken huts; the full moon is a streetlamp behind my shoulder. If I moved back to Denver, would I hear the North wind in the drone of traffic and see basalt hills in the skyline?

Looking back at the photos I've taken of the view facing South, I'm reminded that there's a stark monotony in this landscape. You have to look carefully to see the variations that unfold through the hours and the seasons. As hard as I try, I don't capture the way life proliferates here, even in the winter. The fat cottontail rabbits bouncing across the dirt roads . . . the noisy finches squabbling over seeds . . . the enormous black raven who's taken up residence near the house.

Instead, my imagination dishes up empty villages. And the cries of ghosts.