The road back was better known: Albuquerque, Flagstaff, a restless night in a Needles motel.
Barstow the next morning, then a wrong turn onto Route 66, the road on which I escaped my
childhood fifty years before. Then a U-turn to back roads through small towns, took us home.

On Kennedy Ridge Trail today I recall a sunless New York apartment, roaches skating on
greasy walls; on the radio: "The President is dead." The way is steep. The hills are green
in spite of drought. This path has no way back.

With Pleistocene boulders poised behind me, gulp water and a dry rice cake then walk half- sliding down the trail. Animal paws and human shoes leave equal impressions. Some spirits have risen to the summit. Some spirits still float above the valley's floor.