I'm reading about shit...

I’m reading about shit in a book of prose poetry. Scat. Scatological. My uncle asked me once if I knew what that word meant and I said yes, that it always reminded me of my grandma and the habit she had of examining the piles of animal feces we would find on our walks through the New Mexico desert. Chimney rock and it’s surrounding canyons and cliffs. Chimney rock was this beautiful sculpture of red stratified rock with a sort of mesa at the top and then a little pillar of rock barely connected that stood like a chimney. I used to speculate whether a climber could jump from the mesa to the chimney and make a camp on top. I concluded that nobody had ever tried because of its obvious danger. My grandma and I would walk with my mother and sister, sometimes Jim Hall or my aunt. My mom had an eye for arrowheads and spent some time as an amateur archeologist. My grandma’s uncanny gift was being able to deduce any number of things about the environment and nature simply by examining the excrement of the areas numerous animals. I always thought it was weird. Now I see the strange beauty in what she was doing. Immersing herself in every part of the natural world. Appreciating every piece of matter and mud and rock and chlorophyll. Appreciating the beauty and, in so doing, joining the community of seekers who can find deep spiritual truths and lessons by entering into natural creation. There was a rock climber that my grandmother knew who, in my mind, always appeared as one of these people. I would picture him climbing a rock sheer, his hands on the stone, feeling and listening to God through that rock and learning his purpose and his passion. He fell from one of those walls and broke his back. By the time anybody realized that he was gone, he had died. Somebody carved a bear out of soapstone and it sat for years where his body had lain. My grandma would sometimes take us to that spot and I would stare at the bear in awe and respect of the man that it memorialized. To me he was the epitome of adventure and an example of one who sought peace and found it amid rocks and sage. The fact that he died doing what he loved only reinforced my idealistic image of him. It’s funny that now I can’t even remember his name but I can picture the little smooth black bear surrounded by rough sandstone and dust.