Without Lifting A Finger

I just drove from Santa Fe to Flagstaff and I think I know this beautiful area (around Acoma) that Cather is describing. I can see the "cathedrals" but as I was driving along the I-40, I kept seeing large trains radiating out from the center of a large round station. Anyway: rivals the Grand Canyon (Herbert's "inverted cathedral"). *** From the flat red sea of sand rose great rock mesas, generally Gothic in outline, resembling vast cathedrals. They were not crowded together in disorder, but placed in wide spaces, long vistas between.

 Back in town. On the road (since March 2), I was posting my stuff (mostly bird pics with brief commentary) only on Instagram. Anyway, here's an interesting "clip" from Cather's novel (I have been dipping into her since Nebraska and "Death" also was part of why I went through Santa Fe): Jacinto threw away the end of his cornhusk cigarette and again spoke without being addressed. "The ev-en-ing-star," he said in English, slowly and somewhat sententiously, then relapsed into Spanish. "You see the little star beside, Padre? Indians call him the guide." The two companions sat, each thinking his own thoughts as night closed in about them; a blue night set with stars, the bulk of the solitary mesas cutting into the firmament. The Bishop seldom questioned Jacinto about his thoughts or beliefs. He didn't think it polite, and he believed it to be useless. There was no way in which he could transfer his own memories of European civilization int