Table of Contents Views and Mechanics Publisher's Note Editor's Note Review of Lions at Lamb House Review of Jamestown Review of The Children of Húrin Review of The Politics of Life Film Review of "300" Creative Nonfiction Home By Marion Agnew One Foot and Then the Other By Greg Coykendall Poetry Hannah Plays with Light By Kristine Ong Muslim Caricature of an Early Planter By Michael Lee Johnson Comes a Push-Cart Down a Long-Ass Ghazal By Levon DeBranch Modern Day Moses By Bob Boston Squares (2) Plaza De Armas, Santiago, Chile By Graham Burchell Fiction The Larchmont Campaign By Zain Deane Body Warmth By Louise Kantro The Good People Up North By T.M. Spooner Triple Word Score By Patricia C. Meringer Texans Abroad By Franklin Strong Hunting for Manhood By Jason Sizemore Staten Island Zen By Michael Enright About the Contributors © 2007, River Walk Journal and respective authors and artists. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission. River Walk Journal, Inc. Board of Directors Chairman - Elizabeth Ross Vice Chairman - Joseph Koch Secretary/Treasurer - Geri Stock-Ross Editorial Director - Patti Kurtz, DA Literacy Director - Kenneth Weiss, Ed.D Policy Director - PA State Rep. Jess Stairs Advisory Board Chairman - Patti Kurtz, DA Asst. Chairman - Dan Lachenman, PhD Samuel Hazo Christopher Leland Edwin Yoder Joseph Bathanti Journal Staff Publisher - Elizabeth Ross Editor-In-Chief - Joseph Koch Senior Editor - Patti Kurtz Senior Editor - Neeldhara Misra Copyeditor - Kathy Skaggs Blog Contributing Editor - Maggie Koster Education Blog Contributing Editor - Jordan Wirfs-Brock Publicity Director (PA) - Geri Stock-Ross For information about submissions, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/subs.html. Questions about promotions, subscribers' services, and advertising should be sent to publisher@riverwalkjournal.org. River Walk Journal, Inc. is a non-profit corporation run entirely by volunteers. For information about volunteer opportunities and internships, visit VolunteerMatch.

One Foot and Then the Other By Greg Coykendall I struck a pose of victory just before the timed shutter on my camera clicked. After four exhausting hours of hiking, I finally made it to the top of the mountain. I had to have proof and was eager to have this proud moment in time memorialized. There have been so many things in my life that I started but never finished; this wouldn’t be one of them. My thoughts were already filled with how I would share the story of this achievement with the others when I got back home. As I carefully navigated the field of boulders to retrieve my Pentax that was perched precariously on a boulder, I happened to glance to the horizon beyond. What I saw made me pause in my effort to retrieve my camera. Straddling two boulders, I stopped and stared into the face of something I’d never seen before. Stretching across the Sawatch mountain range and darkening the valley below, a dirty, gray-aquamarine cloud fast approached where I stood. Not merely approached, rolled. It was like an ocean on rollers, its path unswerving, its aim precise. The wind whipped up. My heavy sweatshirt was ineffective against the cold. The temperature dropped rapidly and ice crystals were soon filling the air, stinging my face and any exposed flesh like needles. I had never seen anything like it before; I didn’t know what to do. I was alone on the 21st highest mountain in Colorado, and I didn’t know what to do. The roiling, churning anger swallowed the top of the mountain, and along with it, me. My mountain vacation for this year began just after Labor Day, the “unofficial” last day of summer break. You could practically hear the din of the preceding months recede in the distance. There were already unmistakable signs of autumn. In patches and streaks across the mountainsides, faint brushstrokes of gold and yellow were burnished into the ponderosa pines and aspen. I slowly drove down the road, under the arch of trees, and could almost see the leaves and foliage change color before my eyes. I was on my way to Mt. Yale trailhead. Ironically, as many years as I had been coming to the mountains, I had very little experience with real hiking. In fact, I really didn’t know anything about hiking at all. I thought it was nothing more than one-foot-and-then-the-other. That’s all I knew. Maybe that’s all I needed to know. The slow ebb of summer into autumn throughout that week was an outward manifestation of an inward transformation that I knew awaited me. At 34 years of age, I could sense an inevitable transition into another season; and I felt an urgency to get as much out of the summer of my life as I could. An earlier hike that week yielded this joyful observation in my journal: I’m already higher than I’ve been on past trails, and this is only my first day! The mileage grew as the days progressed. The excitement of racking up miles was intoxicating. I wanted to see how far I could go. I wanted to see what lay just around the next corner. I came across a rather innocuous looking trail guide at the visitors’ center on my first day; the hikes sounded easy, something I felt I could handle. I studied it every day, carefully making my choices as if I was ordering off of a menu in an expensive restaurant. I became intrigued with the description of a particular trail, this one ending up at the top of a mountain 14,196 feet high – Mt. Yale. I was vaguely familiar with the term “fourteener” – any mountain over 14,000 feet – but I had never tackled anything that high before. I could only go by what the guide told me, and it said that it was an “easy to moderate” day hike. I could handle that! The morning of my big hike, I awoke to see the sides of the pup tent just inches from my face. The heavy dew made the thin, green fabric sag inward. Even though it was still well before dawn, there was enough light to cast a faint, green glow within my little tent. I slipped into my faded, white tennis shoes with their threadbare soles. In defense against the frigid night air, I pulled on a sweatshirt over my T-shirt, putting my windbreaker over that. Unzipping the front door, I waddled out stiffly through the opening and into the cold, dark night. I felt achy and sore from the previous days’ hikes, so it took some effort just to stand up straight. I glanced up at the night sky to see if there was any cloud cover and just stood there with my head thrown back and my mouth agape. It looked as if a child had taken a fist full of glitter and threw it onto a black canvas. The Milky Way arched over the valley; its cloud-like luminescence sailed across the cold blackness of space. In spite of my early start, I wasn’t alone on the trail. There were several other vehicles parked at the trailhead when I arrived at 7:00 a.m. I took one last swig of water from my travel mug before sticking it in-between the front seats of the truck. I retrieved the long, slender piece of aspen from the back of the truck. It had been my walking stick all that week. I had found it leaning against a tree at the start of one of the trails, almost as if it were waiting for me. I was already familiar with the first section of this trail, as I had hiked it just two days ago. After scribbling my name and destination in the logbook, my eye caught an official-looking notice posted on the trailhead sign. The Forest Service was requesting that hikers keep an eye out for a missing backpacker, or, that is, what was left of him. They had found his companion’s body last fall after the two did not return from their hike. A feeling of foreboding stirred for a moment within me but was soon vanquished by the rigors of the trail. The trail began as a series of sharply curving, steep switchbacks. My shins and ankles ached from the unmerciful incline. It was soon too hot for my jacket, and I paused long enough to roll it up and stuff it back into my backpack. The sun had not penetrated the dense forest growth, but I was already breaking out in a sweat. Little gnats swarmed around my neck and legs, trying to get at any exposed flesh they could. After the initial mile or so, the trail, thankfully, leveled out. Clearing the thick forest growth, the trail circumnavigated large, brambly bushes as it wound its way through a wide, open meadow. Shy, delicate alpine flowers peeked out from behind huge granite boulders. Gnarled, prickly cactus plants provided security to the lady-like blue and white columbines that bobbed their heads in the wind. Horseflies the size of horses zipped past my ears. The heat of the sun felt weighted on my skin, I could feel the back of my neck and legs start to broil. Five miles and slightly more than two hours later, the trail started to creep past the timberline. A Forest Service sign stood out sharply in the open tundra area. Its lucid directions carved deeply into the rough-hewn boards: “ - Brown’s Lake, Mt. Yale –.” According to my hiking guide, I was over halfway through with the ascent. Only four more miles to go. From now on out, everything I saw would be new. This new perspective on not only the Arkansas Valley buy my life invited reflection and remembering; and I couldn’t help but think about how my trips to the mountains had evolved over the years. My idea of roughing it used to be staying in a hotel that had a drippy faucet. From having a travel agent book my rooms, I went to sleeping in the back of Dad’s pickup, to later, pitching a pup tent. Slowly, the walls between me and nature started to come down; and instead of getting away from it all, I chose to get in touch with it all. Subsequently, my trips have involved being as close to nature as I could comfortably allow. For the most part, my journals were my traveling companion. Pages and pages are filled with excited reports about a day’s hike, or how a family of raccoons lived in the creek next to my tent, or about the deer that wandered into the campground at dusk, or about the bear who played midnight marauder with all the contents of my ice chest. With a renewed sense of determination, I took the right fork in the trail and was off with a little more spring in my step. From this point on, the trail narrowed considerably. Barely wide enough to place two feet side by side, it scored the mountainside in long, sweeping switchbacks. Progress seemed to elude me, at times. It was easy to succumb to what experienced hikers call “trail blindness” – a state of being totally focused on what’s going on at your feet and oblivious to what is above and around you. The sun felt ferocious. The high volume of sweat that made dark maps on the front and back of my T-shirt. The altitude increase was starting to wear on me, and my lungs felt like balloons about to burst. I could only go 10 or 15 steps before I had to stop and catch my breath. On this wind-swept side of the mountain, good resting places were rare. Occasionally you can find a lichen-covered boulder along the trail with a bare spot worn on it by the bottoms of hundreds of hikers needing to catch their breath just like me. On one such break, I noticed two scavenger birds making slow dips and curves in the sky just off to my right. They played in the sky like I played in my backyard as a kid. At first, I thought it was my imagination; but it looked like they were moving closer and closer to me. As it turns out, they were. Soon, they were performing their aerial acrobatics right over my head. It then dawned on me that they were sizing me up for potential carrion! I snapped a picture – showed some life! – and resumed the hike. The scavenger types called to each other and disappeared in graceful arches off to the other side of the mountain. By this time, the top of Mt. Yale was clearly in sight. Even though my breath was coming in hard gasps, and my heart felt like it could flutter right out of my chest, I just had to get to the top. I was too close to turn back. A young (grrrr), skinny (GRRRR), bearded hiker ambled down the path, a walking stick clutched firmly in his hand. I stepped gingerly onto the delicate alpine tundra to let him pass. “Hey, how ya’ doin’,” he asked, hardly breathless at all. “Oh, fine,….(gasping breath)… I guess. I’ll be glad to…..(another gasping breath)….get to the top…..that’s for sure,” I said. “I was watching that storm off to the south, there. Glad to see that it moved off. I’d keep an eye on it, if I were you, though,” he thoughtfully warned. I thanked him for his advice as he turned to proceed down the trail. “Oh, one other thing,” he added. “Once you get up to the saddle, you’re still not at the top. I put my walking stick down and scrambled up the rock field to the true top of the mountain. It’s only about 300 foot elevation gain, but it’s worth it.” Actually, I was aware of the extra bit to the top, but wasn’t planning on attempting it. My goal was to just make it to the “saddle” of the mountain. If I got that far, I would be pleased. But now the temptation had been presented to me, the seed planted. How could I possibly turn back after coming so close? By this point, I was higher than I had ever been on any other trail before in my life. Trail blindness wasn’t a problem now; I couldn’t get enough of the panorama before me. Everywhere I looked, I could see tops of mountains. Thirty of the peaks were over 14,000 feet. No longer was I looking up to craggy heights, but I was now looking down upon them. The remaining winter snow frosted the peaks, like giant swirls on a bundt cake. As I approached the saddle of the mountain, marmots chirped loudly to each other and they darted in and out of the boulder field that lined the side of the peak. A few birds swooped and called excitedly. My goal was temptingly close at hand, and the sun didn’t seem as oppressive, nor the trail as demanding. This is how people must feel when they’ve reached the top of Mt. Everest, I thought. Before I had even reached the shoulder of the mountain, I decided to make the final push up to the true peak. I remember the hiker’s advice and sat my walking stick down against one of the boulders bordering the rock scree. The trail that led me faithfully to this point now disappeared. This was the end of any semblance of a carefully delineated path to the top. I was on my own. From here on out, it was all about improvisation, inspiration, and perspiration. It’s just a matter of picking which boulder to step on and going from there, I thought to myself as I attempted to quell any rising concerns. I balanced on one boulder, then carefully considered my next step. Most of the larger rocks sat firmly in place. Periodically, one would shift with my weight. I’d freeze. Hold my breath. And continue on when it settled under my foot. There was nothing that marked the true top of the mountain; you just knew it when you were there. When you were higher than anything else around, you had arrived. My goal was within reach. A hiker with long, gangly legs and wide-brimmed, floppy hat was taking a break with his dog. He wasn’t nearly as friendly as his dog was. I smiled as I watched the yapping, flop-eared mongrel sniff and explore around every rock. I wondered if he knew just how high he was. I allowed them their time at the top, but they didn’t tarry for long. He mumbled something to me about the weather as he worked his way back down the rock scree. I noticed the clouds had rapidly started to gather, shortly after starting this final ascent. It didn’t strike me as being out of the ordinary. I was used to the afternoon rains in the mountains; and, since it was past 12:00 noon, I knew a shower or two was expected. I now had the top of the mountain all to myself. The wind started to come up. My sweat-soaked T-shirt started to chill me. I dug around in my backpack for my sweatshirt. The rare view all around me provided an unimpeded perspective of the valley and crystal-clear perspective on my life. I could look down and see the trail that brought me here, and I could look within and remember the journey of healing that I started for myself just nine months earlier. Back in January, on one of the coldest nights on record in the Midwest, in that seemingly endless void until morning, I stared a hopeless, unhappy future in the face and decided to step off of the path that I had been on. As I held the glass up to the light, the ice tumbled lazily around in the clear liquid. The clink of the ice made it sound so innocent – like Christmas bells. The rotten smell associated with distilled beverages wafted seductively to me. I stared deeply into the glass and noticed how the images that were reflected through on the other side were completely distorted and unreal in appearance. That’s what my life had become. I had filtered my life, steadily, with this fermented rot for years. When one glass led to two, then three, I repeatedly slipped into a twisted, intoxicated world of obliquity. Thinking I had outrun my fears, they actually remained all the while, sitting quietly at my table and nodding to themselves in smug agreement as they watched me slide steadily to where the road I was on became two – Life or Death – and I had to make a choice as to which one I would take. On that bleak, frigid night, nine months prior to this trip, I took that first step into a world where the images did not blur. Where I was to learn that what might seem unbearable can be gracefully overcome with the dignity that is born out of loving yourself. That first step was simply followed by another, and then another. Starting out on my own “road less traveled,” each step built on the other and made me excited about what I was going to see around the next curve. It wasn’t always easy; but, if I felt lost, I knew I could find my way back again. That’s all it was, really, one foot and then the other. The memories seemed to rush in and out all around me on that mountaintop and I had to snap myself out of my reverie and remind myself that I wanted to memorialize the occasion with a photo. After some looking, I found a rock with a flat enough surface to set the camera on. Focusing the camera on a rock next to where I planned to stand, I sat the camera down and carefully set the timer. The high-pitched buzz told me I had a few seconds to make it back to the rock and smile pretty for a picture. Being careful not to get in so much of a hurry that I’d lose my footing and slip (wouldn’t THAT have made an interesting picture?), I wasn’t quite ready for the first shot. I went back to try another. I noticed the wind shift abruptly in direction. The timer buzzed, and before it stopped, I was set. My right hand was securely planted on a rock next to me, my left clenched in a fist and raised in triumph over my head. I had reached my second “Everest” in one year. It was then I saw what meteorologists call a “roll cloud.” This happens when straight-line winds come up from under the storm creating a “roll” effect on the leading edge of the system. The clouds churned faster and faster; I stood curious but not really frightened by the sight. The temperature dropped rapidly. The steamroller clouds barreled in to overtake the mountaintop. Tiny shards of ice filled the air. The thunder grew louder. Electrical energy permeated the air. The ensuing whiteout capped the boulders in a frosted glaze. It was either overconfidence or ignorance that kept me from panicking and getting myself into even more trouble than I was in already. The whiteout grew rapidly in its intensity and obliterated all but the very top of the mountain. The belly of the cloud sank down, completely encompassing the mountaintop. Within a few short moments, from a world of birds chirping, marmots scampering, and the sun shining, it became a world of ice, howling wind and a rock scree that disappeared precipitously into a churning white oblivion. Visibility being reduced, I became confused as to which way to go back down. I realized that the experience had gone far beyond what I was capable of handling. With the lightning associated with the storm, I figured it would be better if I made myself less of a target. I tried to find a way back to the shoulder of the mountain via traversing down lower on the peak, rather than navigating back down on the top of the ridge. It didn’t take me long to figure out this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Crevasses six feet, eight feet, and virtually bottomless lay hidden between boulders the size of small cars. One slip on the ice and the mountain could have easily swallowed me whole. The scavenger-type birds that I saw earlier would have had lunch off my bones for a week. The storm continued its relentless pounding. The wind increased to a piercing shriek. My unprotected hands were so cold; I could barely feel my fingers. My trousers and sweatshirt were covered in ice. I tucked myself within a notch in the mountainside to find some relief from the wind. I was able to untie my windbreaker from my backpack strap and slip it on. Finally getting out of the wind, I felt I could take my time to think more carefully about what to do. Reluctantly, I decided to go back to the top and try and retrace my original steps. The clouds still hung low and thick over the peak; however, by then, there seemed to be a slight diminution in the intensity of the storm. The sleet turned into more of a snow-like consistency. Once I got back to where, just moments ago, I had posed for a picture of victory, I could see the heads of two other hikers just beyond the second hump in the ridge. They appeared to be working their way back down. I felt more confidant about which way to go. Still, I wanted to join them. I wanted their company more than anything. I hollered as loud as I could to get their attention, but I was downwind from them, and the sound of my voice trailed off into the valley behind me. I tried to catch up with them without making too many hasty movements on the ice-and-snow-covered rocks. When I finally arrived at the point where I saw them, they were gone. I was completely alone once again. By this time, I was so cold my teeth started chattering. I was ready to be off that rock scree and headed back down the trail. The process of judiciously calculating my step became tedious. My muscles ached. Due to the extreme cold, my unprotected hands were red, numb and unreliable for griping. I felt nothing but relief and elation, when I finally made if off of that field of boulders and back on to the bare shoulder of the mountain. As the wind was picking up, towards the back end of the storm, I decided to seek refuge behind the rock cairn that I noticed earlier. Sitting on the lee side of the cairn, I surprised myself by spontaneously breaking out into song. Verse after chorus after verse came out of my mouth. I figured that I would make less of a magnet for lightening if I stayed put (and sang?) rather than start back down the mountain. Also, it was calming. Call it a technique I learned from watching too many Sound of Music reruns on TV. Then I heard someone yelling. I wasn’t sure where it came from. From the top? Down lower? I got up from behind the cairn and saw a middle-aged man come up over the last crest of boulders, a walking stick – my walking stick – firmly clutched in his right hand. He saw me get up from behind the cairn. “I don’t know if you’re my guardian angel or I’m yours,” he yelled to me, even though we were just a few feet apart. “I don’t know either, but I’m sure glad to see someone,” I said. The wind blew straight through our clothes, but it was obvious he suffered from it the least of the two of us. He was dressed in layers with a proper hat and good, durable hiking boots. I felt conspicuous in my worn tennis shoes, visor instead of hat, and my thin-as-Saran-Wrap windbreaker. A sign with the words AMATEUR could have been hung from my neck, it was that obvious. “Do you have another jacket or a something to put on?” he asked. “You look very cold.” My teeth rattling, I sheepishly confessed that I had everything on that I brought. “Here, let me see what I have that you can wear,” he said, digging into his backpack. “Hypothermia can set in quickly, in these conditions. You want to always bring as much clothing as possible.” Even though I was very cold, I didn’t think my general state of health was in peril. I didn’t want to tell him, though. He seemed concerned, and I found that very flattering. “My partner should be coming around any minute,” he said, as he continued to rummage through his bag. “You’re not going to believe this, but she’s an M.D. and I’m a psychologist. You’re in good hands!” I wondered what the chances of meeting two people with such advanced positions in such a remote location were. “Here, this is all that I could find. It’ll have to do,” he said, as he proceeded to pull out a small item of clothing and wrap it around my neck. I again had to marvel at the odds of not only meeting two highly trained professionals on the 21st tallest mountain in Colorado, but to also be wearing his boxer shorts around my neck for warmth! “Look, I’m not sure that’s going to keep you warm enough. Here, put your arms around me, that’ll help too,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me a in a bear hug. There we were, locked in an embrace, his underwear around my neck….just at the moment his partner made her way down off the rock scree. “Hey, honey, I found this guy waiting out the storm behind that pile of rocks over there. He looked pretty cold, can you take a look at him?” he asked. She was middle-aged, dark hair, with a very non-excitable personality. My answers to her perfunctory questions didn’t register any semblance of concern in her expression. By now, the storm had rolled off the mountain, the sun was shining, and the valley was being inundated with a deluge. “I think I’m fine now, really,” I said to them, as I unwrapped the boxers from my neck and handed them back to the psychologist. “More than anything, I was just glad to see someone else up here!” We wished each other luck, and I paused for a while in order to give them a head start down the mountain. As they started their way off the shoulder, I heard the man say to his partner, “Take a look at this great walking stick I found just laying on that rock over there. It was like it was just waiting for me.” I watched as the couple wound their way down the series of switchbacks, and their steps subsided, my former walking stick making small explosions of dust as it prodded the ground. I would never encounter them again for the rest of the trip. The storm clouds that had earlier provided us with some perilous moments were making a rapid escape down the valley and off to the east. A smile brushed across my face when I noticed, arched perfectly over the area of my campsite, a rainbow. Glowing with the satisfaction of my accomplishment, I began the return trip as I had all the other journeys of that day, that week, that year: one foot and then the other.